PinkGirl: Part of Your World

This is one of the songs PinkGirl has been rehearsing for the last two weeks as part of “American Idol” day camp.

PinkGirl posted about it on HER blog too. And she LOVES comments!

I’m slightly proud.

crispy eddie haskell.

So FavoriteSon was invited to go to the beach with a bunch of friends. This is a big deal. Going to the beach without us. Not even with an organized, supervised school or church group, but rather two vehicles full of kids and two parents/drivers.

That would be some new freedom. His dad was fine with it. I wasn’t sure. Here’s the way the conversation went:

Me: “FavoriteSon, if you want more freedom and privileges, you need to demonstrate some personal responsibility, like for your own self-care. For instance, what is one of the most important things you would need to do if you spent the day at the beach without me or your dad?”

FavoriteSon: “uhhhmmmm. Not do anything that would be displeasing to God?”

PinkGirl: “I know! I know! Wear sunscreen?”

Me, to FavoriteSon: “Your sister can go.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I like his answer too, but seriously – what a suck up. Eight years of Christian school can sure bring out the Eddie Haskell in a kid. I would LOVE it if he spent his day at the beach thinking about how he could please God, but he would still come home crispy. I continue the questioning:

Me: “What would you look for to find out if there’s a rip tide?”

FavoriteSon:“. . . waves?”

Me: “At the lifeguard chair . . . “

FavoriteSon: “a . . . sign?”

Me: “A red flag.“

Me: “What do you do if you’re caught in a rip tide?”

FavoriteSon: ” . . . relax?”

Me: “well, okay. Then what?”

FavoriteSon: “uhhhh”

Me: “Swim parallel to shore till you get out of it.”

FavoriteSon: “I KNEW THAT!”

Me: “umm hmm”

FavoriteSon: “REALLY! I KNEW THAT!”

Me: “You are so going to drown.”

Thankfully, the plans changed and they went to Wet-N-Wild instead. Lots of lifeguards, no rip tides. Just free water wedgies. We had to shell out $45 for a ticket, but it gets him in free for the rest of the year. I have a feeling PinkGirl and I will be buying the same ticket this summer.

Anyone want to hang out at Wet-N-Wild? I like me a l a z y river. Float. Walk backwards for exercise between lifeguards. Rinse, repeat.

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Need a few more chuckles today? Check out Friday Funnies hosted by Homesteaders Heart!

If you’ve got time to hang out for a few minutes, check out what else makes me laugh: Pragmatic Compendium’s “laugh!” category.

This was dual posted at Pragmatic Commotion, my “family” blog.

Chicken Grape Salad

A track meet lasts for hours. HOURS. I suppose I understand. If FavoriteSon doesn’t rest between races, he tends to ralph. But what to feed a runner between races? Too much and again, ralph. Too little and they don’t perform as well. Then there’s getting him to eat something at all.

Here’s the scene: He runs a race (and wins, of course). I walk to the field with Gatorade or water. He waives me off and turns away. (Because it is NOT cool to talk to your mom at a middle school track meet.) His coach says, “Take the Gatorade, your mother knows what she’s doing.” (That’s RIGHT!)

After a few weeks of that nonsense, I explained to FavoriteSon: “When I walk out on that field and hand you a bottle of Gatorade, I’m invisible. Your friends don’t even see me. You know when they see me? When you waive me away and your coach calls you out in front of everyone.”

silence. thinking.

I continue, “Here’s what I’ll do – after a run, I’ll bring a small snack and drink to you on the field, hand it to you and walk away. No one will even notice me. Okay?

“ok.”

It worked out perfectly. After the first race, I walked out to the field, handed him half of a peeled navel orange and walked away. No eye contact necessary. Didn’t even interrupt his conversation. After his second race, I walked out with a banana and some Gatorade and he actually talked to me. I waited and took away the rest of the banana and the Gatorade bottle. I will not take that as a sign that it is now acceptable for me to interrupt him when he’s engaged in post-race conversation with his friends.

Last week, I packed us a dinner and brought an ice chest in an effort to stave off concession stand food. The big hit was the chicken salad. It takes about 5 minutes to make! The first version was canned chicken breast, drained, shredded and mixed with light mayo and white grapes, sliced in half. BIG hit! This week, I ran out of mayo and had to substitute spinach dip. LOVED it!

I don’t assemble the sandwiches before the meet because they tend to get soggy. I just bring the salad in a container (square, of course), some bread and a fork. I can assemble the sandwiches right there in the stands. Here’s my sandwich from today, using the leftover Chicken Grape Salad:

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Find great recipes and helpful kitchen tips at Kitchen Tip Tuesdays hosted by Tammy’s Recipes!

And click on over to check out the recipes at Tempt My Tummy Tuesday hosted by Lisa at Blessed With Grace

Need more? Head over to Tasty Tuesday hosted by Kim at Forever . . . Wherever!

Find more ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Kristen at We Are THAT Family.

Works for Me Wednesday posts prior to February 2009 are archived at Rocks In My Dryer

539 out of 200

This post, entitled 539 out of 200, was originally published on Pragmatic Commotion on February 19, 2009.

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yep. I said that right. That would be 539 text messages on a plan that allows for 200 per month. And the month wasn’t even half over.

FavoriteSon and FirstHusband went on a field trip to Washington DC last week and while the students weren’t allowed to talk to each other on their phones, they were allowed to text each other. Just for the fun of it, when they got back, I got online to check FavoriteSon’s usage.

Voice Minutes Used: 8 (and he didn’t even call his mother)
Text Messages: 539

That was February 14th and the billing cycle ends in March.

So after a little family pow wow, I got on the phone and increased his text message to 1,500 for an extra $10 per month. Back dated to include the 539 messages so he won’t have to pay 10 cents for each one over 200.

Because he’s 13. And communicating with his peers. Which he wasn’t really doing so much last year. Before the contact lenses. and the clear skin. and the cool hair. and the team sports. and he’s a good kid, who gets good grades and does his chores. most of the time. and is sweet to his baby sister. some of the time.

Besides. He’s paying for it.

The rules? We’re making them up as we go along, but so far:

1. This rule was instituted the day he got his phone: No phone in the bedroom at night.
2. We get to look at his text messages. If we ask, he allows us. (he can read mine too)
3. He promises he will not text anyone anything their parents will need to call us about.
4. No texting during homework or family meals.
5. He doesn’t forward chain texts & tells his friends to stop sending them.
6. He has to check his own minutes and self-regulate.

He is very motivated to keep these rules. He’s eligible for an upgrade.

What teenager cell phone/texting rules have worked for you?

ch ch ch changes.

I’ve decided to make some changes here at Pragmatic Compendium. I’m going to make it more of a compendium. Here are the changes:

1. I’m going to be republishing existing content from my other blogs into Compendium, so that this will be a one stop shop for all my posts. I’m doing this for a few reasons. First, I frequently can’t find my own posts because I can’t remember where I put them. Secondly, the stats from the other blogs don’t show much traffic from Compendium, so my readers are missing my posts. Compendium is only part of who I am. There’s more!

2. I’m going to keep the other blogs too and continue to publish in them. Every time I post in one of my other blogs, I will publish the exact same content in Compendium too.

Why not just put everything in Compendium and do away with the other blogs?
- The other blogs do get traffic, just not much from Compendium. Most traffic comes from subscription services/readers and search strings.
- Pragmatic Communion is JUST for devotions. By still publishing in Communion, readers who only want to read the devotions don’t have to wade through everything else to find them.
- Pragmatic Commotion is JUST for family stuff. Kid stories and quotes, photos, stuff like that. By still publishing in Commotion, friends and family who want to keep up with my family life don’t have to wade through everything else to find things only related to my family. I might not publish all the kid/family photos on Compendium. I’m not sure yet.
- Pragmatic Communication is JUST about communication: talking, writing, reading, and listening. I’m revamping my business website and will be linking to communication “articles” in Pragmatic Communication. My communication clients want to read about communication tips without wading through recipes, my favorite youtube clips and everything else unrelated to communication.
- Pragmatic Computing (my first blog, by the way) is JUST for computer tips and troubleshooting. It is also linked from my business website and my computer clients like to find computer tips without (again) wading through everything else.

3. I’ll be changing the sidebar widgets to remove the links to the last three posts on each of my other blogs. Since the content will already be within Compendium, readers don’t need to see the last three entries on those blogs. I will instead have a single link to each of the other blogs in the sidebar, in case readers want to JUST see devotions, or family stuff, or communication articles, or computer tips.

4. I think I will be removing links TO Compendium which currently appear in my other blogs. That means there will be no clear path BACK to Compendium when someone clicks over to one of the other blogs from here. However, ALL links from Compendium to the other blogs will open in a new window or tab, leaving the Compendium page open. My reasoning for this one?
- Communication and Computing? Clients don’t need to read such personal stuff about me. It makes things awkward for them. When I get to know a client better, I tell them about Compendium. I got a new client last week. A 64 year old man. He really doesn’t want to stumble upon my hysterectomy woes. Neither do I want him to. Talk about awkward.
- Communion – I haven’t decided whether to link back to Compendium yet. I think I’ll leave that two way clicking path available.
- Commotion? I’m considering telling my mother about Commotion. Somebody slap me. If I do, I don’t want her to find her way to Compendium. I will set all comments on Commotion to be approved before they appear so no one will accidentally “spill” the existence of Compendium. By telling my mother about Commotion, she will get photos and stories about the kids without me having to send the photos or tell her the stories. Somebody slap me. Or convince me this won’t be dangerous, that it’s a good idea and I won’t regret it.

5. I’m beefing up the categories and tags on all the blogs to, hopefully, make it easier for me readers to find posts about certain topics.

6. I haven’t decided how my menu bar at the top will change, but it will. (I’m open to suggestions.)

I LOVE my template, so it will NOT change.

So here’s a call for feedback! What else should I consider? What other changes should I make? What changes should I NOT make?

this is what happy looks like.

Obviously taken BEFORE the “hiccupy tears” post.

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Check out more Wordless Wednesday posts over at 5 Minutes for Mom.

a little commotion

I’ve been lax over at Pragmatic Commotion, but I’ve put up a few posts in the last few days:

549 out of 200

hiccupy tears & Despereaux

It’s funny but each post very clearly represents where we are in our parenting stages with each child.

I like my kids. They make me smile.

p.s.
1. I hated Despereaux – the book – haven’t seen the movie. Hated it. Skipped parts.
2. Any teenage texting/cell phone rule suggestions other than the ones in the Commotion post?

no thank you. you can have it.

That would be half of a tomato, filled with cottage cheese.

And topped with chocolate sprinkles.

And yes. She did eat it. CLICK HERE to see her reaction.

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If you have anything chocolaty to share, post and link to Would You Like Chocolate With That? hosted by Lisa at Stop and Smell the Chocolate!

Wordless Wednesday: Who is this guy . . .

and what did he do with this cute little boy?

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Check out more Wordless Wednesday posts over at is hosted by 5 Minutes for Mom

Wordless Wednesday: Laugh Out Loud!

Click Here to Find Out Why She’s Laughing!

mom. Mom. MOM!

My son wears headphones around the house sometimes, listening to his mp3 player. They completely block all external sound (or so he says). When I need to talk to him, call him, ask him a question – whatever – I can’t get his attention.

So I flash the lights on and off.

After an entire afternoon of this, he responded with, “STOP needing me!”

Yeah. Welcome to MY world, kiddo.

Today, I had a client call at 9:00 a.m. Just a quick little scheduling confirmation. First time on the phone with a client since school got out on May 23rd. The call lasted about 7 or 8 minutes. Think I could do it alone? ALL by myself? To quote PinkGirl, “Yeahhhhhhhhhh.NO.” PinkGirl HAD to talk to me. RIGHT THEN. I had to do the finger to the lips thing about 10 to 15 times. In less than 8 minutes.

I had another call at 10:19 a.m. from another client. Remember, I’ve had no client calls (or even WORK) for over a week. This time BOTH FavoriteSon and PinkGirl HAVE to talk to me. He said, she said. He did, she did. Bicker. Bicker. Bicker.

(wimper)

For the kids, this is boredom at its finest.

What to do, what to do? Last year we threw money at this problem. We bought an above ground swimming pool, which I affectionately refer to as a “redneck” pool. (Trust me when I tell you. I am SO allowed to use that term.) We’ve heard from friends that older kids lose interest in swimming pools, leaving empty nesters with the task of caring (and paying) for their big screened-in, built-in pools. So we opted for an above ground pool that we can get rid of when our kids grow up.

But for now? It’s a hit.

I’m one of those moms who is compelled to be with their kids while they are swimming. I need to see. I need to hear. Often, I can sit on my back porch, under the ceiling fan, reading, working on the laptop computer, blogging, talking on the phone. When I need to make lunch or dinner, I can see the pool through the kitchen window. When it gets too miserably hot, I can sit in my family room – in the air conditioning – and watch them through the sliding door. (I leave the door open a little so I can hear. FirstHusband complains a little about the air conditioning, but he understands.) We invite friends over to swim a LOT. We run the dryer a little more – to dry and warm towels and bathing suits, and we are spending a little more on food for lunch and snacks, but over all – our redneck pool is a hit!

So what happened this morning? The kids don’t often swim in the morning. Something about the water being too cold. wimps. It appears I need to let voice mail pick up morning phone calls and return calls in the afternoon, during swimming.

Except for the weeks they are in day “camps.” Basketball camp, “podcasting” camp, drama camp. Gotta love camp.

We’re also nicking away at learning a little guitar and piano.

(Disclaimer: My kids are 7 and 12 (almost 13) years old. When they were preschoolers, fighting “summer” boredom was a year round challenge. MOPS? You have my utmost respect.)

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There are almost 300 “Mom, I’m bored.” ideas over at Works for Me Wednesday, hosted by Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer.

split ends and blue lips.

Maybe you can relate to the quick little story about PinkGirl and her hair, over at Pragmatic Commotion today, entitled,

“split ends.”

I’ll never make that mistake again.

There’s also a little story about PinkGirl’s latest problem solving experience.