Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: spaghetti, spaghetti

Mishaps, Mayhem and Ministry of Me&Mine: spaghetti, spaghetti: Today seriously reminds me of a poem I use every year in my classroom.  The poem is called "Spaghetti, Spaghetti" written by the famous Mr. ...

spaghetti, spaghetti

Today seriously reminds me of a poem I use every year in my classroom.  The poem is called "Spaghetti, Spaghetti" written by the famous Mr. Shel Silverstein.  But today this poem has come back to haunt me, mock me, and ruin my carpet.  The beginning of the poem goes like this:

"Spaghetti, spaghetti all over the place,

Up to my elbows, up to my face!

Over the carpet,  and under the chairs

Into the hammock

And wound round the stairs..."

I fixed spaghetti for lunch today after church.  It is no one's favorite, but its cheap, and the quickest meal I can make and get on with my regularly scheduled, highly anticipated Sunday afternoon nap. Its ready and everyone starts to come and make their plate.  Elisabeth is crawling around as usual just looking to see who she can trip.  Sarah makes her plate.  She starts walking into the dining room and does a silly little dance for Elisabeth and I watch in slow motion her big pile of spaghetti slide off her plate and onto the carpet.  Elisabeth thinks she just hit a gold mine and crawls fast to get her hands into that big mess - I grab E and put her in the living room while Sarah gets the "Resolve" carpet cleaner and starts working away like Cinderella on the bright tomato red spot on the carpet. Not even two minutes later Jacob comes walking through the living room with his plate of spaghetti and this time I am watching in slow motion horror as HIS pile of spaghetti drops in a big blob on the carpet.  At this point there is no where to put Elisabeth to keep her from getting into someone's pile of spaghetti ON THE FLOOR!!! Kids are laughing, I am FUMING, Jonathan reminded me of when I dumped my taco salad last week on the floor, I tell him to quit being a smart aleck - and gosh, we hadn't even been out of church an hour.  Isn't that how it goes?  ( Didn't I mention a few posts ago that we just had the carpets in the entire house professionally steamed cleaned last month? ) The kids did their best to clean it up - as clean as getting red sauce out of really old carpet goes...

My kid's new best friend

So I'll have a new story to tell when I teach the spaghetti poem to a new crop of second graders.  (There is alot more to the poem, its really cute if you are a teacher and want to look it up.)  Several years ago I tried to do a craft project with my 1st graders off this poem.   The project was an EPIC FAIL - for many reasons.  I come up with alot of crazy ideas in the middle of when I'm teaching to drive home a point.  Some of them work and make me feel like teacher of the year, but alot of them don't and thats when I start praying that the principal doesn't walk through until we can get our mess cleaned up. This one was the latter of the two.  We are learning this poem, I have been teaching them "Visualizing."  I decided to let them create an illustration to this poem using cooked spaghetti noodles.  Everyone gets a pile of spaghetti, we dip all the noodles in glue, then put it on a big piece of construction paper - draw some characters - and Presto! I thought this would be a really awesomely cool display for the hall.  Let me just tell all you teachers out there that glue dipped spaghetti shrinks and takes the construction paper with it - so you end up with a crinkled, shriveled ball of dried glue/construction paper mess, that you can't even put in a folder let alone hang on the wall.  I was too embarrassed to even send it home.  I'm sure they could say, "Look what our teacher had us waste 3 hours on but we sure had alot of fun!!" 

I know that soon today's spaghetti story will give us all a laugh.  Actually, it gave the kids a laugh 2 seconds after it happened, and I'm starting to smile about it.  The faint stain is still in the carpet in the dining room and in the living room.  My house sports that "lived in" look quite well.  And I guess I wouldn't have it any other way.

"Eating Air"

I thought I would give everyone an update on our "4 day diet" plan. (See the post "Beware of cranky family" if you are not sure what I'm talking about.)

I am trying to feed my kids healthy foods.  I really am.  See, isn't this so much better than the cheese puffs she usually carries around?  Sure, she spits most of it out - but I guarantee at least a few kernels get down her! 

  The week before everyone took off for camp I tried to implement a family-wide "no preservatives, no processed foods, nothing from a box or bag, no bread" diet.  This was just a willy nilly plan I came up with myself.  Oh my.  You thought I would have sentenced my kids to a month long stay to the poorest parts of Etheopia.  (Although that would not be a bad idea.)  I've already posted about the crazy drug-like withdrawels of corndogs and frozen pizza and pop everyone had.  4 of us fell off the wagon and had a few little cheats - Chris stayed strong till the very end.  We weighed on Monday, and then we weighed on Friday.  Everyone lost weight!!! In just 4 days of no processed foods, Chris lost 3 pounds, and Jonathan, Jacob and I lost 2 pounds each. I was so excited! Jonathan was trying to burst my bubble of excitement lest I keep this way of eating going by saying "MOM!! - We only lost weight because we have been practically EATING AIR all week!!!"  Not true.   For their snacks they had their choice of fruit, veggies, pop corn cooked the old fashioned way and peanuts in shells. But they did not want that.  So yes, I guess they did eat air for their midnight snack during their 5 hour session of video game bliss.

Real popcorn.  People in their early 40's do not know how to make real popcorn.  We practically had to look it up on the internet.  How much oil? How much popcorn?  Chris had the first attempt at it.  Jacob came in the kitchen and said, "dad- why aren't you making REAL popcorn?"  (as in, microwave popcorn) He said, "son, this is REAL popcorn!"  Long story short - with melted real butter and white cheddar cheese - oh yummy - how we still lost weight I have no idea...

I attempted to make "real popcorn" for Jacob and his friend Clay.  Jacob kept bragging how great "real popcorn was - if I melted a WHOLE stick of butter and he pretty much emptied 1/2 container of white cheddar cheese topping on it. I had to call Chris at camp to ask him how to make it.  He told me not to burn the house down. They weren't to keen on getting their pic taken - they just wanted to eat!! (Clay told jacob "his mom liked to take pictures of her food all the time to!") Its what this facebook generation is just gonna have to deal with!

My mom comes over for dinner on Sunday and we sit at the table.  My kids do not like to "sit at the table." They would prefer to eat their dinner lounging around on the couch in front of the T.V.  Most days we do that. (My sweet grandpa Ray is seriously rolling over in his grave at this.)  Once when I made everyone sit at the table-Sarah told me, "mom! why can't we eat in the living room like normal families do?!?!" (Grandpa just did a double roll)

This is a nice sit down dinner we had with my sweet grandpa Ray, complete with salad bowls and water glasses and 3 forks - he actually bought me salad bowls because he couldn't believe I just put salad on the dinner plate.  Oh grandpa...if you only knew....

See - times have changed.  Processed food, the family din din in the living room.  During this last dinner with my mom, Jacob asks "Grammie, have you ever had real popcorn?" She replied, "Of course Jacob! I used to grow real popcorn in my back yard when I was a kid."  The conversation then continued with Jonathan explaining about this awful diet I just put them on.  I'm totally cringing because I can only imagine what my mom is thinking. When they are at her house she puts 2 weeks worth of vegetables on their plates to make up for the lack thereof when they are in my care.  She sweetly explains to them "that is the only way of eating I knew when I was growing up."  (Think of the voice of Raymond's mom on Everybody Loves Raymond - that's what I heard.) I'm trying to do better mom.  I really am.  My big kids only like to eat something out of a box.  My littlest one likes to eat THE box. Saturday everyone comes home and a new grocery week begins.  I am going to attempt a modified version of my willy nilly plan. And since there are no sports activities we are running off to we SHOULD be able to sit at the table.  In theory, this shouldn't be that hard, but in reality - IT IS!!! 

My prayer for this week - Psalm 103:5 - "SATISFY us oh Lord with good things, that our youth will be renewed like the eagles..." 

The devil and dryer sheets

Do you ever wake up like her and just KNOW you are gonna have a bad day? Since you can already tell you are going to have an extremely bad hair day, you just might as well be mad at the world too! 

Now, I wouldn't normally exploit the grumpiness of my children for the sake of entertainment- (okay, I probably would) but this picture fits in so perfectly with my thoughts for this blog!! Besides, considering how many times Elisabeth gets me up through the night, chews up my furniture,eats my necklaces- she owes me this.  It won't be long before I probably start meeting her at the crib looking the same exact way!! (Oh how I love my little red headed fireball.)

I teach the junior high girls Sunday school class at our church.  I love those girls.  They are so honest. We were discussing 1 John 1:5-10 yesterday morning. Our talk centered around how if we are going to live in the light as Jesus does we can't have sin in our life.  I asked them if they thought they could go 24 hours without sinning.  This was their responses - "You would have to be UNCONSCIOUS!!!"  "Yea, you would definitely have to sleep all day to not sin"  "You would probably just have to read your Bible ALL DAY LONG and not think about any person."   How often do we wake up planning out our sin? Hopefully not very often, but because we have a sinful nature we easily find ourselves neck deep in  harsh words, bad attitudes, and a grumpy demeanor- usually all before 8:00a.m! Especially when you are trying to get 4 kids out the door, and they are already fighting over who gets to sit in the front seat of the van.  Seriously!?! Teenagers fighting over the front seat - I thought they would have outgrown this like 5 years ago -but no.  If I could only invent a family vehicle with 5 front seats, I would be a millionaire and probably cause alot of  families to be sin-free at least in the morning.

I think Elisabeth was already planning out her sin before I could get her out of the crib. 

 This dryer sheet story actually happened about a half hour after I took this picture...My sweet 10 month old is starting to let her little sinful nature show.  I KNOW that she knows she is not allowed to eat dryer sheets.  She found one on the bedroom floor by where I fold laundry and grabbed it, crawled off to a corner with her back turned to me and started ripping it apart with her teeth.  I tell her no, and when I tried to grab it out of her little hands she laid her body down on top of it!!! Can you just imagine the battles that lie ahead of me with this child.  Lord have mercy.  She was not "livin' in the light" that morning!  Jesus knows that it is impossible to keep our life completely free from sin. He gave us his forgiveness so we can maintain that fellowship with him he so desperately desires.  1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sin, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 

Elisabeth searches the house for those dag gum dryer sheets. She will lay belly flat on the floor and stick her hand as far back as she can to get what she wants.  Don't search out sin today.  Keep yourself from tempting situations.  I think we are going to have to resort back to laundry without dryer sheets.Who cares if my laundry has static - it will be funny if Chris shows up to work with a black dress sock stuck to the back of his t-shirt.  I just need to remove that temptation completely away from Elisabeth before she really does manage to swallow to much and hurt her little rock filled tummy.(One of the other thing she likes to eat.) I think the devil puts those dryer sheets on the floor - not to cause Elisabeth to sin but to STRESS ME OUT and cause ME to sin! :) Is there a temptation that you need to remove from your life?  Living in the light of Jesus is so much better than living in the darkness of this world. "Happy is the man who doesn't give in and do wrong when he is tempted, for afterwards he will get as his reward the crown of life that God has promised those who love him." James 1:12

Now, there is no way I can  remove this temptation completely from her in the house. We'd all be in trouble!

Have a great day everyone! Don't be a crankypants no matter how bad your hair looks today!  "May you go out with JOY and be led forth with PEACE" as your new week begins!  ~Amy ~(Isaiah 55:12)



"Dog Bones and Dorms"

So I sent Chris off to camp bright and early at 7:00 a.m. this morning. All of his sets of clothes in the suitcase are in big ziplock bags marked with the day he is supposed to wear it. HaHa! Just kidding! (Although that is a great tip I picked up from fellow children's camp parents.) I could never be that organized. That is the week my boys can wear the same outfit for 3 days if they want and I don't have to pretend I don't notice - while secretly inside clapping for joy that I have way less laundry when they pull these stunts.

I'm alone with the kids right now - Sarah and Jonathan take off for camp on Tuesday, once the Jr. High get back, and me and Jacob will be doing our best to manage Elisabeth by ourselves for the next 8 days. (This child literally takes all 5 of us to raise!) First thing this morning Elisabeth decided she liked Matty's (our dog) snack much better than she liked her snack -which was a cracker. She gives Matty her cracker. Matty willingly takes its off to a corner and munches away happily. Then she spots Matty's nasty, slobbery, chewed up bone - picks it up and just as she gets ready to put it in her mouth, I clap real loud and say "NO!" She just took off crawling faster with her little chubby fist clenched tightly around that bone. She would NOT give it up! I finally catch her and I take the bone, she throws a fit, and I'm ready to send her to camp with her dad. After that little episode Sarah asked me to go dorm shopping with her. I am just so thrilled that I get to spend the day with my "original" baby girl. We leave the boys at home in front of their XBOX (all is well there). It was so much fun looking at all the cool dorm stuff with her. She patiently listened to all my college stories that she has probably already heard 50 times. I even went into detail about "when I went shopping for my dorm stuff at Walmart...." and THEN when we got home I pulled out the college photo album and had a picture my old dorm room in Leslie Hall!!! The memories!!!  (Two things, Sarah's stuff did not even remotely -  not even from the same planet - come close to how I decorated.  And for the record, I do not decorate like this anymore! I would be living all alone in my blue and mauve country knick knack house if I even THOUGHT about it!)

Sarah recently got her dorm assignment for SBU and she will soon be a resident of Beasley Hall.  What cracks me up is that during one of her visits she heard that Beasley was "the fun girls dorm where everyone acts crazy."   That is the exact reputation it had 20 years ago!!! Once Chris heard that was going to be her dorm he would walk around the house talking in his best sounding cool 80's voice saying, "Sarah's gonna be a Beasley Babe....."  I'm like, "honey, if you are going to walk around talking like that, then grow your mullet back out."

This is my husband back in the day trying to impress those "Beasley Babes."

Now I lived in Leslie Hall but I still managed to have about as much fun in a dorm as your R.A. will allow.  My R.A. was also one of my best friends.  Tonight tucked away in my photo album I found write up slips from her given to me for being to loud!! And another one for pounding on the floor!! (What was I thinking? I totally grouch at my kids now for acting that way!)

Kaari was always so sweet when handing me these even though I can pretty much guarantee I drove her crazy and she still would probably love to come to my house and be obnoxiously loud while I'm trying to sleep and pound on my floor for no reason at all.

Kaari figured if she couldn't settle me down, she might as well join me!

I was telling the kids tonight that my SBU days were four of the best years of my life.  Which then they looked at me and said, "But what about when you had us?!?!?!"  (oops! some thoughts are better left unsaid.  - joking again kids!)  Rut really, that is when THEIR story started!!! I met their oh-so-cool-lookin-mullet-wearing-dad.  We got married.  We had Sarah - in BOLIVAR! She spent her first year crawling around a tiny apartment, in BOLIVAR! And now she is returning to where it all started.  Wow. I am so thankful SBU was in the Lord's plan for me -  the life long friendships - which led to my husband - which led to my kids - "For I know the plans I have for you says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future." (Jeremiah 29:11)
I'm so glad my original baby girl is willing to follow God's plan for her life.  And of course I'm tickled pink that God's plan includes SBU for her right now.  And if she thinks that just shopping for dorm stuff brings out all these stories and pictures - just wait till' the day when we move her in!!  I can't wait to get back on campus!! I guarantee we will embarrass her. 







"Cucumbers under the carpet"

I told you that today I was putting my family on a diet. No processed foods. No bread. No sugar.

Jonathan was grilling cheddar BBQ burgers (without the bun). He had this tiny leftover piece of meat so he made this miniature hamburger.  Chris walks into the kitchen and says, "Thats what we're having?!?!?! Little tiny hamburgers?!?!?"

So, its been like a drug rehab center around here today..  The first couple hours of withdrawel when everyone realized you couldn't go to the pantry and grab a bag of chips, or have an ice cream bar after lunch sent us in "oscar the grouch and visibly shaking mode."  As I was listing what they could have today for snacks - apple slices, string cheese, shelled peanuts - one of my children just looked at me increduously and said "Those aren't snacks!" (Oh my gosh I have messed up my kids-I'm sure some of you really good moms out there are just cringing.)

I will tell you that this is hard.  And expensive!! (Did not save on the grocery budget!) Although it is not cheaper to buy completely fresh, I still stayed within my grocery budget.  I just spent my money on healthy things to eat instead of the normal Zluticky stash of junk food.

We are a couple days into this by the time I'm finishing this post and there are some things I am learning about putting a family on a radical diet.  Be prepared for psychotic behavior - sheesh! I even scared myself! But as a couple members are biting the dust and having a couple little cheats I know that radical doesn't work - it freaks you out before you even start and you get obsessed about what you can't have.  We'll finish the week out because we have no junk food anyway -  then go our seperate ways to camp, the lake, etc... where we are at the mercy of other people's cooking.  Once we are back we will set up a realistic plan that will be less brutal. (Listen to me, you'd think I made my family fast for 30 days or something...)

I thought maybe I could get little E in on the action. I gave her a cucumber and I thought she ate it. I was so excited for more reasons than one. I was happily clapping and cheering for her as she smiled and crawled away. A few minutes later, I found a little pile of chewed up cucumber sticking out from underneath our throw rug. That was the work of my Elisabeth. She said "no way, no how am I eating this -give me back my cheese puffs!"

Beware of cranky family! Extreme Carb/Sugar withdrawel happening now!

My husband sometimes says, "Girl - you have ISSUES!"  and tonight I'm thinking I do. It's 10:30 at night, and I got out of bed, went to the fridge and got my leftover Mexican food from LaFiesta.  Here was my insane line of reasoning  - I was thinking about when I would possibly get the chance to eat it tomorrow, which would not be until evening, and by then - the chips would be to soggy and someone in my family would possibly eat it by then.  So I am sitting in bed with my leftover container,crumbs in the covers, my diet coke balanced on my Bible (sorry Jesus)- knowing I am so gonna regret this when I am not yet asleep at Elisabeth's midnight wake up call. And with the caffeine buzz I am about to have, I will be up for her 3:00 am wake up call too! (My 10 month old likes to revert back to her new born days when it comes to sleeping through the night.) Yes, I do have issues.

It's funny that tonight I would set up a mini-mexican restaurant in my bed, because I really feel we have shopped in the "Big and Tall" and "Short and Fat" section of department stores one to many times this weekend. As we were sitting at LaFiesta , feasting on our 10th basket of chips Sarah suggested we go on a "family diet."  Now this is coming from my pencil-thin, gorgeous 18 year old daughter who is stressing because (Gasp) she has possibly gained an ounce since basketball season has been over.



Now, if we were smart  - we could buy clothes a couple sizes too big so when we wear them we are like, "woohoo! look how much weight I lost!"  (Just cut the tags out that show the size.  You will eventually forget what the size was and really think you lost weight.)  Look at Ms. Droopy Drawers here.  She is saying, "Hey mommy! I lost 10 pounds this week! Look how my clothes are falling off me!"





 I have been wanting to do something for a long time, but have been nervous about doing it. I am thinking about putting the whole family on a total non-processed foods diet. Just fresh fruits, veggies, meats, cheese, etc... Nothing out of a box or bag.  No  bread.  The 99.9% who read this blog know our family.  We are NOT the tree hugging, nature loving, eat granola and never shave our armpits sort of family.  We are the couch potato, mountain dew drinking, chip consuming, kind of family.  When my kids ask "what's for lunch?" I tell them their choices: frozen burritos, frozen taquitos, frozen corn dogs or frozen pizza.  Oh my gosh! Just seeing that in print is awful! I am so not getting the mother of the year award. Now, before you start shouting Hallelujah because I am changing the deathly eating habits of my children, we are are only going to do it for 4 days. Monday-Thursday.  Starting tomorrow. Chris leaves for camp on Friday and I'll head off to my dads.  But I'm gonna track how we feel, see if any of us lose a pound, and just get a taste of what its like to be healthy. And maybe get everyone's opinion on if could they do this for longer than 4 days.  I will let you know how it goes if we don't eat each other first.  And I seriously doubt I will be climbing out of bed for a bowl of carrot sticks and glass of water. So if I don't lose any weight, I will at least get more sleep! (If the Z's can do this, then ANYBODY can...I'll let you know how day 1 goes tommorrow night. :))

"please don't pee in our pool, we don't swim in your toilet"

Have you ever gone to a pool and saw a sign hanging up that says, "Please don't pee in our pool, we don't swim in your toilet." And even though you KNOW people do, you are usually to hot to care and jump in anyway.

So there is what looks like boogers on our wall.  Now, considering our kids are WAY to old or WAY to young to fling boogers, Chris had a "come to Jesus" meeting with our boys about who was flinging boogers on the wall.  Well, after "mom's probably doing it"  (ummmm...ya, right!)  - Jonathan, being the ever jokester he is, says: "I didn't fling the boogers, I've only peed in your shower."  Chris was about to come up off the couch! JZ is laughing, we are trying to figure out if he's serious...Chris tells him he is going to bury him and pee on his grave!  But I promise you, we will not be taking a shower until I bleach and scrub that shower clean at least 3x.  And then I'm not even sure.  I may spend some of JZ's inheritance and put in one of those "rebath" things they have on display at Sam's over our shower. We keep asking if he really did it, and all he does is laugh.. so just in case, Jonathan will be showering outdoors with the hose from now on. 

Chris is only expected to deal with potty in the showers one time a year - at Children's camp.  And thats just really gross cause all the showers go to one drain.  He has learned not to stand under that particular shower head with the drain and wear some thick flip-flops. What youth ministers endure for the sake of the gospel.  I think all youth ministers out there should wear matching t-shirts with this verse printed on it: "That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, injuries, necessities, in persecution for Christ's sake."  But really, if all we have to deal with furthering the cause of Christ is unpleasant showers, forks in our yard, vaseline under our car door handles, sleepless nights, spilled drinks on our just cleaned carpet, chasing kids in "1,000 degree heat,", (no matter what camp Chris has ever been to, the temperature is ALWAYS 1,000 degrees according to him.) - then we are so lucky.  Millions before us have truly suffered for the sake of the gospel.

We are blessed.  Our kids make us laugh and what a gift that is.  Both our jobs put us in the midst of kids who make us laugh (and occasionally pull our hair out).  I will go now and clean the mysterious globs of goop off the wall, and I know Jonathan did not go potty in the shower.  He just loves getting his dad riled up! (But if you ever see  what looks like a shallow grave in our back yard.....)

These are my two favorite jokesters who constantly keep us rolling!!

Actually, this is a picture from Jonathan's big acting debut.  He was SO hilarious in the play "Stranded." We are lucky we get to see his humor on a daily basis.  Glad he got to show it off that night. 

This is the only child in our family who would get excused from having a boogie outside a tissue or even a potty accident in the pool :)

"My sister ate my homework"

Can a baby have Pica disorder? You know, the disorder where people eat weird things all the time and then end up on TV about it? When Elisabeth ate her book she got for Christmas we thought it was funny.  When she chewed a big chunk out of our coffee table, we thought it was funny, blamed each other for not watching her, and secretly hoped she would not be pooping out wood chips at her next doctor's visit. Then she moved on to eating our cotton balls.  I put them up and still cannot find them.  She would clean her throat with our Q-tips.  She learned to crawl over the barricade in the bathroom and munch away on toilet paper.  We can add dryer sheets to her menu also. She has eaten my grocery list, chewed a hole in the not-yet bought macoroni box, pooped out starburst wrappers etc... I think we have reached "over the top" status when at the end of the day I would be "Yes! She only ate 3 non-food items today!" Now, if you are thinking "why don't you just keep a better eye on her, or keep paper products out of reach" trust me, we do, we have, she is part magic.  I think she snaps her fingers and a yummy roll of toilet paper appears.  Now, if she was a perfectly normal child we would not worry.  But considering she is in therapy for NOT eating regular food,  and she already takes an iron supplement, ummm - well, we can probably sign her up for that reality show "my secret obsession" where they eat the weird stuff.  Just another thing to add to our Elisabeth prayer list. God has been faithful throughout her little 10 months and even though it feels weird to pray "God please help those 5 pieces of mail Elisabeth just ate digest in her stomach" - I know he cares about her and her eating habits more than we do.  And teachers for future reference, if my kids come to school and say "my sister ate my homework" - they really mean it.

Sample of Elisabeth's choice of snacks: