Mom is the Boss

Caleb is required to practice his trumpet 60 minutes a week to get an A in band. He’s been practicing Christmas music for the past month, which, frankly I’ve been enjoying.

He picked his own hairstyle. He’s always been one that is happy in his own skin, not wanting to follow the crowd. I let him know I was a cool mom for agreeing to this.

Writing every day in the month of November is harder than it looks.

Last night, Alex passed a kata test at karate. This means he will have four kata patches, and Caleb, who is a higher belt level than him, only has three. This bugs Caleb. Their sensei did a wonderful job of talking to Caleb about it, and explained, that some people love sparring, like Caleb, and some people love kata, like Alex, and if she ever put the two of them together in a sparring match (which, she stated, she would never do), Caleb would cream Alex. That it’s ok, for Alex to excel in kata, while Caleb excels in sparring. That did cheer him up a bit. I think he wants Alex to teach him the kata though, so he can get that patch, which is saying a lot, because he doesn’t like Alex to teach him anything to do with Karate.

Many blogs out there in the blogland are already bringing up Christmas. I am happy to say I have ONE gift bought. I have had it for a month. I had to put it away when the family came to visit for Caleb’s birthday party, so the recipient wouldn’t see it. Jared wants to go shopping together this year. We use to do that when the kids were little. But, now they’re older, and they want more expensive toys, and I bargain hunt ahead of time. Not this year though, we’re shopping together. So, we have no gifts yet. I have been playing Christmas music for a week though, much to Jared’s chagrin. For some odd reason, he thinks we shouldn’t celebrate Christmas until December. Caleb pointed out.. “But there isn’t any Thanksgiving music!”.

I started painting our walls a boring brown a couple weeks ago, but then got feeling icky. I think this weekend, I will have plenty of energy to finish the hallway, and perhaps the bathroom! I need to really get crackin’ on our home improvement plans!

That’s all the random thoughts for now.

The community has been shaken by a teenage death. The kid was only 3 years older than Caleb. The school was quite somber today. Caleb of course had a hundred and one questions about the entire situation. I told him, bottom line, I’m so thankful that it wasn’t me, that got the news that my child was gone.

We must not take life for granted. I need to try harder to enjoy every moment with my children. No sweating the small things, enjoy them.

A lame blog post. A cool lego building, made by Caleb.

As soon as I got up, I was bombarded, and told that Jonas just HAD to go into Manhattan. He’s been saving for book two of a pokemon series, and finally had enough money set aside. So, off we went. We battled game day traffic, game day crowds, and got the book. He started reading it in the mall. He read it on the car ride home. He hasn’t even taken off his coat. He’s still reading, 1 1/2 hours later.

Every day, after school, one of the first things Caleb asks me, is “What’s for Dinner?” On the weekends, while I’m standing in the kitchen, doing ANYTHING, Caleb asks me “What’s for Dinner?” This has been going on for years. I swear to Jared, that I did not do that as a kid. Now that it’s here in a public forum, I can’t get an unbiased opinion from my mom. (Jared might claim she’s taking sides now!) It drives me batty. I have no idea why. I suppose I like having a bit more conversation, not just the question “What’s for Dinner?”. I want him to say hi first, ask how my day was, ect.

A popular second question, that my eldest likes to ask, is “What’s in this?” When I serve dinner. I offer him the cookbook, to read after dinner.

Today, he got up at 6:30am. He got dressed. He came out to the living room. Sat down, to put on his socks and shoes. 6:47 am. He looked over at me and asked: “What’s for dinner?”

No photos. Although, I had plenty of opportunity, as I watched that mouse eating my chocolate chips.

So, we have a mouse, that loves chocolate. I have no idea how normal this is. If we leave a Hershey’s kiss on the cabinet, the mouse comes, and eats it, leaving the wrapper. No bag of chocolate chips are safe either.

So, I sent Jared to the store for a mousetrap. He came back with the fanciest things he can find, and some special gel, that is guaranteed to attract mice. I told him peanut butter works great, and he was ripped off on that. But, I’m using the gel, just to make him happy. So, I put out the first two traps. One next to our trash can (which in the past is the primo spot), and one under a cabinet. Nothing. For two days. Then, this morning, I wolk up at 4am. And I heard the mice playing, and having a ball. The rest of the family was asleep, so I couldn’t shout at the mice. One ran under the couch, right next to me. I hit the couch a few times, attempting to give the mouse a heart attack. This morning, Caleb gets up, and tells me.. “I see a mouse under the piano, it’s pretty cute.” I’m losing it now. It is also reported to me, that a mouse can be heard in the cereal cabinet.

*sigh*

So, I instruct Caleb to bang on the cabinet for a while. (The heart attack method at work.) About 15 minutes later, I go in, open the door. There’s the mouse. Standing on the edge. It just looks at me. I explain to the mouse, that I am bigger than it, and it needs to run in fear.

So, we get out two more traps. I enlist help from my brave 12 year old. He gets all of the cereal boxes, potatoes, and chocolate chips out of the cabinet. I hand him the trap. He puts it in place, he shuts the door. We wait for magic to happen. We also put a trap next to the piano, and one in the living room. We’re ready.

I tell the kids they can have hot breakfast at school, because the mouse has creeped out their mom.

Right after the boys left for school, I hear the mouse again. I go and stand on our dining room bench, to see if I can spot where the critter is. It’s on the stove. Eating the chocolate chips that Caleb just took out of the cabinet. I wonder.. was it in one of the boxes? So, I shout at it. Threaten it. Watch it run in fear. I grab a trash bag (I’m brave, going into the kitchen), bag up everything Caleb just took out, and take it outside to the trash can. We’ll see what happens next.

Edited to add:
Immediately after this post, I heard MORE noise in the kitchen. So, again, I climbed up on the dining room bench, and peeked into the kitchen. An empty bag of cereal that didn’t quite make it to the trash, was wiggling. 3 feet from me. I shouted and threatened again. (That will work, one of these days.) It stopped moving. So, I tip toed into the kitchen. The bag then moved again. Inches from me! I jumped several feet back (If Jared were home, he would of pointed out that I am not an elephant), and grabbed an umbrella. I cleared off the dishwasher (where the bag was). This required a lot of bravery. I banged the umbrella on the dishwashwer, to show the mouse I meant business and it needed to stop wiggling. I then grabbed the trash can, smacked the umbrella on the open end of the bag, to trap any critters in, and swept the entire thing into the trash, knotted up the bag quickly, and walked it outside.

Now, truth be told, I have no idea if the mouse was still in there or not. I’m hopeful it was. I need the rest of the mice to go to sleep for the day. Come out at night. And go eat the magic gel.

Alex and I are hanging out at the house today. The symptoms he has described to me, are quite a bit different than what I’m feeling, and he was just very lethargic yesterday. So, he stayed home. Although now, only 2 1/2 hours into his day home, he’s quite wiggly, and “bored.” Unfortunately, he has no option, but to lay around, as those are the staying home sick rules. I think he’ll be just fine for school tomorrow. I too, am feeling better. I discovered it doesn’t hurt my throat at all, to eat caramel filled Hershey’s kisses. Thank goodness!

Everyone in the family picked out one meal for the next two weeks’ menus. Jared always grabs our Emeril cookbook . Every recipe in this book takes at least two hours. I have tried to explain to him, that I can’t use this book, now that I work! That was my “stay at home mom” cookbook! Alas, he just smiles, and picks a recipe. So, tonight we’re having “Roasted Garlic Soup” with “Kicked up Dinner Rolls”. So far I’ve put 2 1/2 hours worth of time into the soup. Now it’s in the crock pot, simmering. The dinner rolls will be started at noon, to be ready for a 5pm dinner. I sure am a good wife/mom.