Almost doesn't count in potty training......

Naomi is potty trained, she really is. She knows where the potty is. She knows what it is for. She knows how to use it, wipe, all that stuff. So why is it so hard to get there?

Is our house really that interesting? The kids whine that there is nothing to do, yet they are so wholly occupied with other things that they apparently cannot take the time to go to the bathroom until the dam has sprung a leak. From ages 2 to 7, the last minute seems to be the order of the day. It is true that in our house, with this particular thing, without the last minute, it might never get done.

Maybe she likes to dance, because nothing brings our the wiggles, hopping, and Michael Jackson impersonations like a call of nature put on hold and forgotten about. Nature can only listen to elevator music for so long before it lets you know that this is one call that cannot be delayed. When we spot her interpretive dance moves we can usher her in, but it seems that like most entertainers she requires an audience. She says she cant turn on the light, or move the stool to the porcelain throne. And maybe she is right, maybe she can't, because if she stops to do anything else other than what she is doing right now, she will go from hip hop to Riverdance.

Its easy to get angry when an "accident" occurs. She is dancing, and doesn't make it. Apparently she has been holding it since her birthday last March, and proceeds to make a lake on the bathroom floor, where it will rush to seep through gaps in the cheap tile singing "Give said the little stream". She has the presence of mind to hike up her nightdress, which doubles as a dancing skirt, but finds herself in a dilemma. Now she is in the middle of the lake, and the tile floor is slick. She takes a step, and goes down, still trying to hold up her skirt to keep it from getting wet. This means by the time she struggles back to her feet, in tears, she is still holding her skirt above her belly, while her shirt, and pants, and socks, and anything else she might be wearing, is thoroughly soaked.

Mom hears her go down. She goes in to see what has transpired, and is faced with two choices....to laugh...or to cry. Naomi is already crying, so the laugh wins out. Off come the clothes, Naomi mops the floor, into the bath. Almost. So close. Maybe next time. (While this draft was old, and far past due, it was worth the publishing)

I dont need to change my socks.......

Kids. Sometimes they change their clothes 10 times a day. Sometimes you have to threaten them with something drastic to make them peel off clothes they have probably had on for a week. Mine truly don't mind if they wear the same clothes day after day, in fact, I think they prefer it.

They are like...boy scouts...always prepared. Wake up in the morning, need to go to school? No problem. I slept in jeans and a T-shirt, away we go. Need to go play in the snow? Lets go! I still have my coat on from when I went to school this morning.

Their clothes invariably get dirty. The mud on their pants I understand. I mean, if you have ever seen my children run you would understand as well. Gideon is like a bobble head on legs, his head flopping from side to side as he runs like a rubber chicken on a treadmill. It looks painful, but his eyes are shining and he has a smile on his face. Its no wonder on occasion he biffs it, he brain must be desperately working overtime trying to figure out why is field of vision oscillates worse than a rowboat in a hurricane, pitching from side to side and in every which direction.

The food on the shirt I understand. For some reason, the concept of napkins does not occur to my children. They will take a bite, and without a moments hesitation, wipe their mouths on their shirt sleeves, collar, or hem. You can have a washcloth right there for them to look at, closer to their hands then the food itself, but the shirt seems to work best. We have hatched a cunning plan to get them to use something else. We will cut their shirts up to use as washcloths, and sew washcloths together to form nice patch shirt for them. Maybe we can just cut a sleeve off a shirt and run it right up their arm over their others clothes?

Samuel sits on the couch, his feet stretching out beyond the realm of the cushion on the left and firmly into the territory of the middle cushion, a patch of real estate highly contested in my home. Carenna occupied the far right cushion, and from her vantage point spied with her eagle, motherly eyes, the socks on his feet.

"Samuel. I think you need to change your socks. They look dirty, and you have probably had them on for more than a day."

Samuel responds with indignation. "I don't need to change my socks, there is no hole in them."

Of course he was right, the socks did not as yet have a hole worn through anywhere. How can we argue the logic? I had a good laugh, and didn't think too much about it until the scene played itself out nearly identically.

"Samuel, you need to change your socks. Go in the bathroom and put them in the wash."

"I don't need to change them. I didn't even pee on them."

And there you have it. It is officially OK to keep your socks on until you have burst their seems or burst your bladder, whichever comes first. These are things they should have taught me in school but never did. Who says all you need to know in life you learn in pre-school?

Super Pooper Powers

Super Pooper Powers

Children are great. They are often fun, occasionally agree they like something twice in a row, and like to live life dangerously. This usually consists in spinning in a circle with their arms straight out in the hopes they will “accidentally” hit one of their siblings in the head before they succumb to dizziness and crash land, but I digress.

The truth of the matter is, your children were born with super powers. Innate abilities that are present in childhood, but lose their efficacy or appeal at some point in the mystical transition to adulthood. Today, I will discuss one of them. Pooper powers.

Now, my tenure as a parent is somewhat limited, but from what I can see, pooper powers extend from birth to at least seven.

Ghost poop. I dont know how they do it, but sometimes, after they do their business they are mysteriously clean. This never works for me. I am not sure if it is an issue of technique, maybe I need to try their famous Precipice Position. You know, the one where it looks like they are going to fall in any moment. Anyway, this one is just downright spooky.

CDR. Clean diaper response. This ability is found in infants, especially newborns, and seems to go the way of bellbottoms by the time they are ready to potty train. You go to change the kid, they are poopy as always, and within moments of securing the new diaper they get that look in their eye. You know the one I mean, its where they cross one eye, clench their fists, and do their best constipated seal impression. This usually results a changing of the diaper, second verse same as the first. I think there is a scientific term for this. They call it an aftershock, or maybe it was a secondary eruption. I forget.

The important poop. This is the ability of your children to have to go poop whenever you are late for something. Dr. appointment? They have to poop. School? Poop. Time to go to grandmas. Time to poop. Time for a new baby to be born? Not before they poop. This ability seems to be closely linked to the “where are my shoes” phenomenon.

POD. We live in a world of instant gratification. We can go online and get answers, not necessarily the right ones, to almost any question. We have movies on demand. We can buy any worthless item we want at the store, and if not, there is always ebay. My children can poop on demand. This power is one that they reserve for one of two situations. Time out, and bedtime. Put a child in time out, and watch the bodily function go. They could have gone poop four times in the last 13 minutes already from prior time outs and somehow, some way, they will still need to go. Likewise, bedtime seems to bring out the worst in them, if you get my drift. Something about the relining position must stimulate their bowels. As parents what are we to do? I have cleaned poop off carpet. Not fun. Ranks up there with shaving kangaroos and eating snails. So we let them go. They know they have us, you can see it in their expressions. Perhaps the most shocking thing is their ability to produce and require the wipe.

Extended poop. This ability is triggered by the presence of another child who desires to poop. I suspect that a mathematical proof could be presented quantifying the relationship between the time it takes to unload and the number of siblings who are waiting to use the john. Seriously, we need another toilet. Maybe a two seater. Surely we can convert an old stroller or something.

At some point these powers lose their power. We no longer have a desire to fill our britches on command. We don't want to get up after going to sleep and do number two 5 more times.  We hurry for the person who is waiting, and we always have to wipe. Maybe one day, these powers will return. Butt until then, the power lies in the hands, the small hands, the busy hands, the don't touch your sister hands, of my children.

Can't Catch Me, I'm the Gingerbread Man

The holidays are a great time of year.  Good food, good family, and school projects.  The seven year old, again, the oldest, came home from school the other day with yet another completed project.  He was excited, showed it to my wife and went about his business playing with legos or something.  After a few minutes my wife asked if I had looked at the project.  I confessed I had not and she encouraged me to take a look.  I asked what it was and she said that they had decorated a picture of a gingerbread man at school.  Thus armed with great expectations I moseyed over to the table to take a look.

Now, when we think of gingerbread men what comes to mind?  Shrek has forever imprinted the standard stereotype on our minds of something that looks like this:  

I envision something cute and delicious.  Gumdrop buttons, eyes, mouth, frosting filigree, the works.   So good in fact, that a fox will try and eat one instead of his more traditional fare of chicken.

There is my gratuitous chicken photo to add space between their gingerbread man and that of my child.  You have to admit, this chicken is doing a fine job of being disguised. The real question here is if the fox will try and eat him anyway.  I figure a hungry fox would go for a flamingo, kinda like a chicken covered in cotton candy.

This was not the sight that awaited me.  This is how my son decorated the gingerbread man:

At first I didn't really know what I was looking at.  I mean, I could tell he was smiling, and he had eyes, but I was having trouble figuring out why he had a giant blue dot on his forehead.  Then, it began to dawn on me.  I scanned the picture looking for the telltale signs that the random scribbles of color were indeed purposeful and direct.  Yep, there they were.  Blue for the nerve system including the eyes, red for veins leading from the red heart and purple veins to return blood, brown for the lungs, and yellow for the urinary tract.  There is even the outline of a stomach in there.

Close up of the head: Its the little details that make it special.  The tongue, the red around the eyes, pupils, the dark creases in the blue brain.

And now the body:  Note the irregular shape of the heart, the stomach, and the shape of the lungs.  Not sure why the urinary system extends all the way up to his shoulders but clearly he has the right idea.

I asked him if the other kids decorated their gingerbread man this way.  He said no.  I can only imagine what parent teacher conferences will be like.  I am beginning to see the proof of parentage, this is my son.  One thing is for sure, if a fox is trying to eat the gingerbread man from Shrek and the one my son made, my money is on my sons.  With a heart like that he could run forever.

The Awesomeness that is Comptroller General

While preparing a post on my family finance blog, I found it necessary to use the title Comptroller General. After throwing it in there, I stopped for a moment to ponder if my readers will know who, or what that is. I mean, what do we really know from the name?

What I know is that it sounds awesome! I picture an evil cyborg general from the future, with his army of comptrollers, ready to open up a can of trollerness. He definitely wants to rule the world, speaks in a soviet accent (cyborg dialect of course), and is loaded with some serious software that lets him do all his comptrolling. He probably has some pretty sweet hardware as well, and can shoot missiles out of his nostrils.

Possible Comptroller General

Possible Comptroller General

                                                       

He should have a comic book. You should draw me a picture of what the Comptroller General looks like.

Well, when he isn't comptrolling his robots, the Comptroller General is in theory doing his cover job, that of the Director of the Government Accountability Office or GAO. I realize that it may come as a surprise to most of us that Government and Accountability are found not only in the same sentence, but in the same acronym. If you are anything like me, your first question is, where the heck has this guy been for the last decade? Why have his comptrolling skills failed to control the government or made them admit accountability for their mistakes?

Comptroller General Under Cover

Gene Dodaro is the current General. Yeah, General Dodaro. He likes to go by General Gene instead. Has a nice ring to it. Apparently the general is in for 15 years. Pretty sweet. Gene is pretty new to all this, being a Interim Comptroller appointed earlier this year in March, so he is not to blame for the previous madness.  He is awaiting confirmation from Congress; perhaps they are laying down some ground rules first.

How exactly does the Comptroller make the government accountable? Well, funny you should ask, because the office used to be known as the General Accounting Office GAO, before its name was changed to the Government Accountability Office GAO. Got that? I mean, you wouldn't want to be the General of the General Accounting Office....much too redundant. The new name is much cooler, especially the new acronym.

Oh yeah, back to what they do. Accounting. They audit the financials of the Office of Management and Budget, and the financials at the Treasury. This makes them experts in examining negative, and some might add, imaginary numbers. Really big ones. What they have found may shock you.

According to wikipedia, who is quoting Cornell, who probably quoted Andy Bernard,

“For every fiscal year since 1996, when consolidated financial statements began, the Comptroller General has refused to endorse the accuracy of the consolidated figures for the federal budget, citing "(1) serious financial management problems at the Department of Defense, (2) the federal government’s inability to adequately account for and reconcile intragovernmental activity and balances between federal agencies, and (3) the federal government’s ineffective process for preparing the consolidated financial statements." “

That's right, since the end of Ronald Reagan, through the Bushes, Clinton, and into the now, the Comptroller General of the United States can't even put his name to the numbers on the budget. He can't do it. As an expert in negative numbers, they probably are not negative enough, (or imaginary enough).

Overall it looks like GAO does a pretty good job of telling us how much money is being wasted. Head on over to www.gao.gov and check out the never ending story of mismanagement. Atreyu would be devastated.

As a watchdog, it appears their bark is worse then their bite, since they report to congress, who approves the same budget that the Comptroller General can't put is name to. They do throw a pretty mean party though, so next time you are in DC, swing on by the party palace, and don't forget to bring your financials. Make sure they use negative numbers though, lots of them. And say hi to General Dodaro for me.

Feel free to submit your own versions of the Comptroller General.

King of the Forest

Occasionally, when we are feeling daring, we allow are children to watch controversial shows.  This can only be done every once in a while, for shows of this nature will induce questions, questions that children will pursue with relentless tenacity.  Thus, with much trepidation, we allowed our children to watch...Bambi.
  I steered clear of the actually showing, not wanting to have to deal with the inevitable discussions of love, hunters, and eating flowers.  The children seemed adequately entertained, no questions were forthcoming, and I figured we were in the clear as we started the mid-day meal.  Then the questions started.
   As we partook of our daily bread my seven year old got us started.
7: "Who is Bambi's father?"
Sounds innocent enough, right?
Me: "Well, remember the big deer that Bambi sees in the meadow?  And the one that he runs into during the forest fire?  That was his father".

Figured we were done.  Not quite.

7:  "What was his name?"
Me:  "Whose name?"
7:  "Bambi's father."

Ah, now that is a mighty fine question.  What is his name?  I have spent the last seven years carefully crafting the misconception that Dad knows the answer to any questions, even if the answer is to ask mom.  I sure as heck was not going to be stumped by a question regarding the geneology of Cervidaen Royalty.  Time to put the ol thinker to work and see what we can come up with to preserve my Oz like grandeur.

 Well, what do we know about him?  He is King of the Forest.  He let his son be named Bambi.   Anyone see a problem with those two things?  I mean, what kind of a King lets his son be named Bambi?  This is the prince of the forest, not a future porn star of the Glade.  Bambi?  Why not Spear Antler, Fierce Nostrils, or Buck Grande?  Surely if the name was Bambi's mothers idea old pops would have put his hoof down.  That means the name had his approval, a thought that was truly disturbing.  Then it occurred to me, that there was a possible explanation.

Me:  "Bumbi.  His dads name was Bumbi."

My wife gave me the raised eyebrow look, and I needed to defend my position.

Me:  "Surely the only way he would let his son be named Bambi is if he had an equally awful name?"
  Thats right, it was a revenge naming, the worst kind.  Having lived with the shame of his own name, he was ready to pass on the family tradition to his son and heir to the throne.  She seemed content enough with the answer while I endured the disbelieving looks and protests from the younglings. I was pleased enough with the turn of events, and figured the case was closed.

7:  "Why didn't he talk to him?"
Me: "What?  Who?"
7:  "Bumbi.  Why didnt he talk to the Bambi in the meadow?"

Ah.  Good grief.  Why didn't he talk to him?  Now that he mentions it, Bumbi seems like a real slacker.  Is he there at the birth? No.  Is he there to teach him to walk?  No.  Is he there to keep the future prince from having a skunk for a best friend?  No.   Does he warn him of hunters, talk to him in the meadow, or send a check to mom to help cover the cost of raising Bambi.  No on all accounts.  In fact, the first he decides to do anything is when he becomes Bambi's guardian after his mothers death.  Probably court ordered.  He shows up when the whole forest is on fire, tossing his rack around and letting him know that his inheritance it being destroyed and if he wants to survive to enjoy the ashes he needs to get going.  How do I tell that to my child?  I don't, I can't.  Gotta come up with something else.

Me: "Bumbi couldn't talk to Bambi.  He couldn't come over and spend time with him at all.  That's because he had antleritis."
7:  "Whats that?"
Me:  "Its a disease that keeps your antlers from growing. It only effects young bucks, older deer can carry the disease, and Bumbi didn't want to spend too much time with Bambi so that he would be able to grow antlers and win his future bride and become the next king."

Whew.  Saved by a mysterious disease that only effects the potential headgear of deer.  Mysterious persona preserved, we completed our meal to much hilarity.  Satisfied with the tale of Bumbi and his illness, the questions stopped coming from the children, but ultimately the conversation created more questions than it answered.  The questions haunt me, leaving me to doubt everything I thought I knew about Bambi.

Why is a deer the king of the forest?  Why not the mountain lion, bear, or wolf?   Why not a moose or an elk?  Who died and made the deer king?  I mean really, what kind of a racket are they running?  Its no wonder the kingdom burned down.  Do they have some kind of an alliance with the lesser animals that allows them to rule?  Gives me shivers.....how do the bears sleep at night.....

Why Seven and not more?

The title for the blog is simple, my wife and I, plus five kiddos, so seven for now, with no way of knowing if that number will go up again.  Well, actually, there probably are ways of knowing but I am not going to get into that because this blog is family friendly. Unless your family cant read, because at this point it has no audio, so, if you are not reading this and want to know what it says you can always give me a call on the phone instead and I will read it for you.  I will even do voices.

I considered many other titles, but most of them were taken by people who posted once in 2005 and dropped off the face of the earth.  I have decided that the first thing that blogger needs to do is come up with some way for someone to take over the web address of inactive blogs that basically have no content.  The second thing they need to do is come up with a mascot.  I mean, I want to see what a blogger looks like.  I think the word is rather ambiguous, the way USU's Mascot, (the Aggies) is a Big Blue Bull, and the New Mexico Aggies have a Cowboy.  Same name, totally different species.  Though I suspect some cowboys speak bull.  I wouldn't be surprised if they did, for in my experience individuals from a wide variety of jobs speak Bull, in many cases fluently.