Happy 10th Sam I Am!!

10 years ago my youngest caveman was born. Aw....Wow! How did he get to be 10 already! He was really excited for his birthday. He got 3 cards in the mail that had money in them. That seems to be his favorite these days. Prime Green Solid Paper Money....

The last month he's been earning dollars off of me from helping out. He got a liking to that and ran with it. I asked him to clean his room this weekend and he could earn a dollar. He got right to cleaning his room and then said
Sam: Mom, I cleaned my room. Do I earn $20?
Me: No, you earn $1
Sam: Do I earn $10
Me: No, you earn $1
Sam: But I don't have a $20 bill in my wallet
Me: Well, neither do I. You only earned $1
Sam: Oh, fiddlesticks, I wanted $20
Me: If you want $20 you'll have to mow the lawn.
Sam: Nah, I'm too young to do that.

Hmmm....So much for that.

His birthday money went right into his wallet. I didn't even get to see it, and when he did let me look, he was very guarded. I think I have a money hoarder on my hands. If he keeps this up, he can support me when he grows up. From all the allowance he's earned off me, plus his birthday and Christmas money. I guess the days of slipping it into my wallet & telling them it's going in their bank account is over. It gets to their bank account eventually. Just consider it a small loan...My mother did that to us..eventually she ended up giving us money, so really it just went back and forth from wallet to wallet through out the years. So, I guess I'm just handing down tradition. Well, those days are over. I guess now they'll have to pay for their own movies and McDonalds, now that they have more money in their wallets than I do. Besides, most of it started out in my wallet anyway. So it all evens out in the long run.

Sam had a great birthday day. He got a present from his bus driver, his teacher, and his daycare lady. He had his favorite for dinner tonight, French fries, apple sauce, and deli ham. He had a two-layer rectangle shaped chocolate cake with white fluffy frosting and green & blue icing. He had 10 multi-colored candles, so it was quite colorful. He didn't eat any of it, he just likes the pomp and circumstance of the birthday cake tradition. Which is fine with the rest of it, it means we get to eat more cake. We do a pretty good job of it too.

He got a watch, blendy pens, fake money & cash drawer, and the Dr. Suess Happy Birthday To You book. If you ask him what his favorite presents are he'll tell you the watch & the real money. Yep, he's 10 alright!

The first 10 years of his life were definitely challenging and boy did they go by fast. I sure hope the next 10 don't go by as quickly.

I've Got Work to do!

Along with the new title of Eagan Kickball Director, comes the plethora of duties I must finish before May 21. Create a kickball email address, write an article for the newsletter due by Monday, create a flyer and get the flyers out and about town, help out with a write up for the local paper, create a detailed budget, create the final rules and guidelines of the game, create a webpage for the EAA website, prepare for registration and a sport showcase event, come up with team names to use, ect...

The youth sports use team names of the professional sports they mirror, but since there is no such thing as professional kickball, then that option is out and I don't want to really duplicate what the other teams are using. I think I want the team names to include the work Kick in it, like my adult league is named Kick Busters. Or perhaps I could name them after different types of animals native to Minnesota. I won't really need team names until I form my teams, but it's still a fun task I get to do. Any suggestions?

At least it is all fun work to do, and I'm excited about doing it all.

Meet the New Director

Of the Eagan Athletic Association Youth Sports Kick Ball League. The first in Minnesota.

Tonight I met with the entire board of sports directors and gave my proposal to add kick ball to the youth sports program. Lots of questions, concerns, and comments from board members, but I was able to get the motion passed, seconded, and nominated as the director.

It went back and forth. For a while I was optimistic, yes, it's going to be added. No wait, here comes some opposition. Nope, back to being all for it. Nerves of steel, I made it through the blast of questions, comments, and concerns. A motion was passed, it was seconded. Every one said yay, no one said nah. Whoo Hoo. Complete elation came over me.

Onto the next step. I was given a budget. The next meeting in May I am to have a budget proposal, a more clear picture of how the program will work and operate.

So, tonight I begin history in Minnesota of adding Kick Ball to youth sports in Minnesota. A first. Kick Ball has been a co-ed adult sport for the last 6 or 7 years. It has grown and grown. I am hoping to bring the youth to that field.

Who knows what is next? Olympic Kick Ball....could be...don't count it out. Minnesota Youth Kick Ball..Bring it on!!

Another funny composition entry

Last night I was looking through my oldest son's composition notebook. Here were a couple more I found.

Arizona/New Mexico

Somewhere in the world a snake is being killed for it's skin.
Somewhere in the world a snake's venom is being milked for anti-venom.
Somewhere in the world a snake's habitat is being destroyed.
Somewhere in the world someone is dieing from a poisonous snake bite.

My that's touching huh?

Here is another gem.

I Wonder

I wonder why my dad wears his slippers 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
I wonder why my mom wears her necklace all day and all night.
I wonder why the flight attendants on our plane had such a bad attitude.

He must have written this one after our California Thanksgiving trip. I don't remember wearing a necklace all day & night though, but I must have. And yes, dad does wear his slippers all the time.

101

On May 9th this year my grandmother will be 101 years old. Last year she had a big huge party for her 100th birthday. Wow, she is pretty amazing.

Today I was flipping through the pages of my 11 year old's composition book from school. Here is what I found on one page.

My Summer - Wyoming

I went to Wyoming to celebrate my great grandma's 100th birthday. She rode a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Then the whole town made a talent show for her. The fire fighters also celebrate. Every fire truck engine, rescue units, and marshals went by the motel with their lights and sirens going off. Then 100 fireworks blew up the night.

Yeah, that is pretty much what happened last year. It was just cute to read it from the view point of a then 10 year old.

Those Evil Girl Scouts Are At It Again

I love them. I hate them. I love them. I hate them. No, I really do LOVE them!!

Not only do the Girl Scouts prey on us with their super yummy delicious cookies each year, but they have infiltrated the ice cream industry as well. Yes, they have found a new way to get into our homes after we have devoured all the boxes we bought. We can now find them in the ice-cream department at our local grocery store. They sit in the ice cream freezer just waiting for us to walk by. Then it happens. We see that Tagalongs, Thin-Mints, and Samoas are added to Edie's ice cream. We stop our cart and we stare at the ice cream cartons lined up in a row. And then it happens....we drool. We just have to have that ice-cream with Girl Scout Cookies! We stand there and decide which cartoon of yummy goodness to take home with us. Eenie, meanie, miney, mo...No, let me do that over...Eenie, meanie, miney, mo...catch a Girl Scout by the toe....if she hollars make her pay....Hmmmm...which one do I want?

Sometimes it's an easy decision and sometimes not so much. My last grocery trip, the Tagalongs made it into my cart. Oh my heavenly goodness in a frozen vat of yummy goo!! I digress....the carton is now gone. Yep, I ate it all. I couldn't get enough and by the time I got towards the bottom, I just took my spoon and ate it from the carton, just like a caveman, except I didn't let anyone see my moment of weakness.

Girl Scout Cookies are my Kryptonite.

Enough Blogging For One Day

Well, I think I got you all caught up to speed on us. (Start at the bottom of today and read up to here.)

I have finished blogging for the day and Kevin has finished his book. Hallelujah!!!!!!

ER Finale

During the course of all the busyness the last 9 days, I of course took time out to watch the full 3 hours of the ER television show finale. I have watched that show from day one, and have hardly missed any episodes over the past 15 years.

The finale was great. They brought back old characters, tied up loose ends, and even brought back Dr. Green. Dr. Rachel Green that is.

The show ended with a big trauma brought to the ER and all the doctors and residents meeting in the ambulance bay ready for action. Life goes on in the Chicago ER.

I have to admit I was expecting something a bit more dramatic at the end. Something with lots of special effects. Like the L-Train derailing and falling into the building, or the ER getting exploded by a semi or suicidal unibomber. Nope, nothing like that...life goes on...Very sweet, but keeps me wanting more episodes of ER.

Kumon Learning Center

Today I took Kevin to Kumon learning center for an assessment. It's not a test of brilliance or stupidity, but a test to see where to start the program. He did pretty good, but he doesn't have his multiplication math facts down pat. This causes him to use his fingers to count, which slows him down at school, which raises red flags with the teachers that he has a learning disability. Not to mention his lack of desire to do his reading projects. The school called me last week and wanted the ok to test him for learning disabilities. Um...no my child isn't a dumb dumb, he's just lazy, and there is no motivation what-so-ever to light a spark. They don't hand out zero's they give extensions, and the worst I can do is send him to his room and ground him. He's grounded right now until it's all done as a matter of fact. I also pointed out to the teacher that whenever he takes the required tests for how smart the kids are, he always tests out at average at grade level.

Since he's not doing the work, they figured he doesn't understand the assignment. So not true...He's just looking for an easy way because he knows he doesn't want to do the assigment. It's not interesting, so why bother? He'll just do it in detention.

He starts Kumon on Monday. He will attend every Monday and Thursday and he'll have Kumon homework every day.

I'm also thinking that his poor vision might be some of his problem as he hasn't been able to see well. So between having glasses and Kumon I'm hoping to keep this kid from riding the short bus.

The Time Nazi

Sam is the time nazi. Oh that kid is SOOO obessed with the time. He has gotten after me every day for not picking him up at 3:58 from daycare.

Here is a daily conversation with Sam when I pick him up.

Sam: Mom, you are late.
Me: No, I'm not.
Sam: I told you, I don't like to be last.
Me: But you're not last, so and so, and so and so are still here.
Sam: Why don't you pick me up at 3:58?
Me: Because I work.
Sam: Well, you should pick me up at 3:58, so I can get home at 4:11, and have my snack at 4:13. I don't like it when you pick me up at 4:38. I don't like to have my snack after 5:00, so you should pick me up at 3:58.

Oh boy....he had driven me nuts with it one day, so I told him to get over it. Nope, he didn't let it go. I heard about it the whole ride home, and then again the next day. I picked him up one time at 3:58 and I'm really regretting that I did. I honestly don't know what day that was, but I bet if I ask him, he'll tell me.

Hockey Game

Tuesday night I went to the MN Wild vs. Dallas Stars hockey game. I had originally bought tickets from a friend of mine at work. I decided to ask my friend Jo if she wanted to come to the game with me. Of course she did, but she didn't want to pay to sit in the nose bleeds. When ever she goes to a game, she buys tickets from a scalper and never pays full price for it. She always sits in good seats on the first level. That sounded really good. So I asked my husband and he said "who is going to watch the kids? You should ask Jo to go with you." Hmmmm....

So I asked Jo about how this scalping thing works and that I would re-sell the tickets I had bought. No problem.

We have a friend who gives us very nice hand me downs to us all the time. He just so happened to give us a big bag of clothes that included 2 almost brand new Columbia winter coats after I got the tickets from my co-worker. My husband said "Hey, let's give the tickets to that guy because he always gives us great hand me downs." What a great idea! So we gave the nosebleed tickets to him.

The day of the game Jo & I headed down to the Excel Center. I let her out to go work her scalping magic and I went to find a place to park. I've never bought tickets from a scalper before, so I am pretty green and she said "let me do all the talking, you just observe". She worked her magic and got us tickets on the goal line, 16 rows up from rink for $35 each. WOW! She's good! So if you want to go to a hockey game and get good seats, go with Jo.

The game was really good. Lots of checking and falling down on the ice. The Wild won 3-1. GO WILD!

5th Grade Science Fair.

Last Friday night there was a big 5th grade science fair at Kevin's school and we HAD to go. I'm glad we did. It was very neat and huge! The students had been working in groups on science projects and they had to make a big display of what their project was and what was the outcome. Kevin's project was eating different flavors of Pringle's Potato Chips after smelling a dill pickle. They were seeing if the pickle would trick the brain into thinking the chip tasted different. Interesting....

At the science fair they had snakes, lizards, turtles, hedgehogs, and birds of prey. They even had a little alligator. Kevin LOVED those. In the main gym they had all sorts of different science experiments. I completely failed the smelling experiment. You had to pick up a little film canister with a hole in the lid and see if you could identify the scent. Then you put the canister on the picture of what the scent was. I got 2 out 8 correct. I got maple syrup and black licorice correct. One of the canisters I couldn't smell anything and two of the canisters smelled the same. So much for my sniffer...

They also had a section where you could look under different microscopes. That was very interesting. They had this really neat hand held microscopic device that displayed the image on a screen on the wall. You held the lens (with a light) to something such as your jacket, skin, shirt, hair, ect...and then you could see it magnified on the screen. She said that type of scope is used in alot of crime labs and you can even take a photograph of the image. Very cool.

Outdoors they had all sorts of telescopes pointed at the moon. That was really neat. One of the scopes you could see the moon very close. The astronomer by the scope said "See the middle crater with a spec in the middle that looks white?". I said "Yes". He said "That is a mountain in the middle of a moon crater and the white color is the sun reflecting off of it." Wow, amazing! Then he explained what the first early astronomers used for telescopes, which were very simplistic and amazing they could see anything at all.

Blog Neglect

It's been 9 days since my last blog entry. Things have been busy, mostly with my child Kevin. This may have to be several blog posts as one post may be a bit too wordy. So we'll start with Kevin....

Kevin, Kevin, Kevin.... He pulled another "I'm not doing homework" strike on us. He had three weeks to read a book and do a book project on it. It was due this past Monday. Sunday night at 9:30 pm he asked if I could take him to Wal-Greens to get poster board for his project that was due the next day. I asked him "What project?". He said "the one that is due tomorrow". I hadn't seen him reading a book, so I asked him what book he was going to do his project on. Well, he didn't know the answer to that. So I decided to let him face the music with his teacher. I told him, to enjoy flunking the assignment and getting a big fat zero on it. Then I congratulated him on repeating the 5th grade.

Monday afternoon I got a call from his teacher. She started to explain that prior to spring break 3 weeks ago she had assigned the class a book project and that it was due that day. I said "Yes, how'd that go for Kevin?" Then she was surprised I knew about it. She asked me when I learned of the project and I told her "why it was just last night at 9:30 pm". She told me when she asked Kevin why his project was not done his reply was this..."My family couldn't afford the materials to do the project." She knew better and called him out on it. She told him that she had explained to the class if they needed something she would get it for them and the project wasn't going to cost any student any money.

Then she started talking about whether or not he understood the assignment. I explained that he probably did, and that he just didn't want to do it. She gave him a week's extention.

Monday night I went to the library. I returned all the books he had previously checked out and checked out 6 or 7 works of fiction. I came home and said "take your pick, and get to reading". He picked out a book and has been reading all week. His teacher told him to bring the book to school as he would be staying inside from recess to read his book. Tonight, he is reading his book. I think he will finish it tonight. He's on page 235 of 259.

April Foolery

Mother Nature played the best prank of all today. We woke up to snow. Boo! Didn't she get the memo that spring is here?

This morning I sent an email out to my shop managers. There were about seven total that I pranked. I told them that the computer system was going down at 10:00 am and would be down the entire day. They would have to do all their work orders in the truck shops by hand on paper and then enter them all into the computer tomorrow. Then I sat back at my desk as they scrambled to the back up plan. I was proud of them that they had a back up plan just in case our computer system really did crash for an entire day. After about 20 minutes to a half an hour after I told them this, I sent them another email saying "Hey suckers, check your calendars and see what day it is, then get back to work. Muhahahahaa, enjoy the rest of your day."

Yes, then my phone rang, the emails started to fly. I'm da debil!

Later on when my boss went to lunch, I did this to his office. I wrapped his telephone, planner, calculator, keyboard, mouse, and office chair in Saran Wrap. Yep, I'm da debil!

Of course they all screamed about paybacks, but they need to learn the rules of being the April Fool. They have a year to think of ways to get me back.

The kids at home tried to get my hubby and I all day, but they couldn't keep a straight face or keep from laughing, so it didn't go over so well for them. Maybe next year.