Merry Christmas!

My father and his twin brother at Macy's, 1954.  Aren't they cute?  My dad tells me that they had to wear the same outfit all the time.  When one of them got dirty, they both had to change. 

The Style. The Look.

Patrick loves these pants. Actually he has about six pairs of pants. They are all the same size, same brand, same colour. Seriously. His dad is the same way, but ol' Dad needs to buy new pants for work (same brand, same colour) when his old ones show signs of extreme wear. I got tired of Patrick putting mailing tape all over his pants at school and having people feel sorry for him. He must have come up with some odd story to tell his teachers that they would have sympathy for him and give him an entire roll of mailing tape AND a bit of masking tape so that he could make a smiley face on top of his knee.
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I SWEAR I asked him if he would like some new pants and shirts before the beginning of the school year. He said no, reasoning (correctly!) that I would take the old and ratty ones and throw them in the trash. Well. He didn't quite phrase it that way, but still. As you can see, I at least don't want him walking about with gaping holes over the winter and patched these up as best I could. Who thinks Patrick should ask his mom for three new pairs of pants? I mean, Mom orders these things on the internet, just type in the same size as always and *zing* order complete. Would YOU go to school like this to save your mom $25?

The Sideburns

Elf refused to get his hair cut. He wanted to keep his "sideburns." He CANNOT have his sideburns cut, ever. He's absolutely freaked out about it. But he *needed* a haircut, folks. Needed.

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I've tried all kinds of goofy agreements, but they didn't work. I can't have a ten-year-old physically fight me while I'm holding scissors, so finally I just told him I'd keep the sideburns and we'll just see what they look like.

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"And you won't cut them after we see what they look like," he told me. ("Well, we'll see," I told him. "Maybe you won't like them.")

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We kept on and on this way. WHY would a ten-year-old be so concerned about sideburns? Nobody wears those any more.

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"They look manly," Elf told me with a sniff.
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"Well, a lot of the really, really OLD Presidents wore sideburns, Elf," I said to try to convince him.

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"Yes," he told me. "And they were manly."

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Sigh. He doesn't know who Elvis is, or that might be a convincer. So I had to use my diplomatic skills, which I have in abundance, oh-so-skillfully. Elf and I and finally we were able to strike a deal. I would document the haircutting process, and blog readers would let us know what they think.

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So... are sideburns in with the blog-reading set? Do they look manly? Elf and I want to know.

The Dark Rider

He's really a much-beloved Japanese doll wrapped in a cloth pirate hat, but he plays his part so well. He keeps coming up behind me and whispering, "Baggins..." Can you tell we are midway through The Fellowship of the Ring?

Summertime with G and Q

G and his friend Q have been hanging out this summer. Q, as you remember, is a rather interesting sort. Let's just say I finally figured out that much of his problem is that he doesn't take social cues very well. I look back over his past behaviour and I don't think it's a parent thing at all... it's a Q thing.

Yeah, here I am with all these different kids, and I just now realized that.

Ok, I didn't. Actually, *G* had to clue me in to the fact that Mom, he just doesn't understand a "hint." You have to tell him. And that's true. Once you just flat out TELL him, he's ok... no beating around the bush or trying to be "polite." No trying to drop the subtle hints. It's rude to just TELL someone they need to go home. But that's what I have to do so that I don't wind up getting mad at him and he doesn't wonder why he isn't invited over. Q is still a friendly lad despite this blunt approach. In fact, I think he appreciates it.

I can't say that G could ever ask for a better friend, but both Q and G would do well to take a social skills class or three. Q calls six times in five minutes. He shows up at the door. He comes by after G has hung out at his house because (I guess...) G can't make the two blocks alone. Then Q wants to hang out, both of them all sweaty and smelly, in my house.

Arg.

Not to be mean, but I told G to be home at 4 so he could get a shower and dinner would be ready by 5. I don't begrudge the kid a drink of water when he comes by... but... I kept saying that I was making dinner now. (I thought that was direct enough; guess not). I FINALLY had to get sorta rude with Q and say (in a friendly tone), "Well, it's time for me to kick you out, buddy!" And he was ok with that. "Ok, see you later, Mrs. C! Call you later, G!"

And soon I'm going to have to say, "Q. You are just calling too much. Two calls per hour, barring emergency, okayyyy?"

They are best friends. And my, does Q love to talk. A lot. He also has several funny stories about the newest craze.

Hopefully you humour me after my little post yesterday... but the latest craze is for young ladies to lift their shirts and show their boobage to young men. Really fast, lift the shirt, put it down again. You wouldn't notice if you weren't looking.

I don't get it, Q. What would the inner motivation be here? Do they expect the young men to suddenly ask the fair damsel's hand in marriage, or what?? Is this a request for a date? Are you boyfriend/girfriend officially after that happens? Don't get it.

Q turned about as red as his hair. (Well... I don't think that's it, exactly... he told me. But he went no further.) And from his chatter I gleaned that this has happened on several occasions to G. When interrogated, G neglected to mention it because why should I know this? I would just get upset. And a girl flashed him during YEARBOOK signing time at school? You didn't tell a teacher about this right away? (I got an eyeroll from that... he's pretty cool under questioning.)

Whyyy did this happen to my little kid? Was this her way of wishing him a good summer? Ok, I still don't get it, and the more I declare this, the funnier the guys seem to think my puzzlement to be.

So I asked D about it and he said no, no one is going about boobflashing him. "What? No, I'm an old guy. Why would they do that to me?"

Mental note: must be young, eligible male. Hmm... So I called Patrick up to ask him and he replied, "WHAT? I missed it?"

I'm sure he doesn't mean that. Please say he didn't mean that.

New Teen Craze!

Forget this earring thing G just did. That's nothing. He's nowhere near as fashionable as the teen WEREWOLVES wandering around schools in "packs." I guess in Missouri, we are behind the times fashion-wise, but I have yet to see children howling in large groups outside our local mall and wearing long furry tails. As explained in the video, everyone is part animal and we must find this part of ourselves and embrace it. Sort of Darwin meets occult spiritual practice meets third grade reasoning skills sort of philosophy. Does anyone else remember the cheesy Teen Wolf movies from the 80's? Car surfing is apparently not part of this culture, however.

Parenting Teens

A friend did this last night. G came home with a different earring, a BIG "diamond" one. D was quite upset. I didn't like it but tend to put this sort of thing into the "things we don't fight about" box. D was very mad. He mowed the yard for about two hours. He had several discussions with G between clipping vines and mowing.
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Wellllll... he's still really mad. He still really hates it. But he is going to bend on this when he saw how important it was to G. It is starting to look all bruisy and icky. It wasn't even a gold earring they used! I took him out and HE bought rubbing alcohol and a gold earring. Hope it doesn't get infected. But wow. I hope his taste doesn't run into mohawks or purple hair next. It wouldn't bother me *so* much, but poor D can't stand much more, bless him!

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Maybe I'm not too upset because I remember doing this once myself. KT and I were 15 once and liked to listen to Duran Duran in her basement with her cat. We used a hot needle, a cork, and some ice and pierced each other's ears. We were cool. Now we are both all grown up and she is a professor of history. :)

Love in a Time of Homeschooling

Nice set of articles on Psychology Today blog. Usually, the articles on that blog are a little... crazy, really. But this set is pretty well-balanced. It almost seems like homeschool apologetics: a real-live actual, educated, working mom not only considers that hippie, wack-o, cult ranch form of education... she actually DOES IT. Pulls her normal kid out of her normal school and messes with her normal little mind and twists it.

For a whole year!

Ahhh... ok, that sounds a bit sarcastic, but actually, I love this series of posts. There's just something so oddishly new about seeing what you do every day defended by someone who might not want to live your lifestyle forever, but has at least seen what it's like for a time and is "translating" the experience to other people.

"The word 'homeschooling' makes some people cringe," she writes. "They envision a fundamentalist Christian Mom teaching creationism at the kitchen table, or a counter-culture bohemian, making tie-dye shirts and ignoring algebra."

Um... I teach my creationism at the DINING ROOM table, thankyouverymuch. And hippie that we all know that I am, I'm thinking that tye-dyes are more fun than algebra lessons. One thing the article didn't cover (and I wish there were a series on this too!) is that HELLOOOO, fundamentalist Christians who believe in a young earth also send their children to public schools sometimes. So do hippies! Sure, we're the parents the teacher never wants to deal with but we are out there. Some of us are even nice people.

The comments were pretty telling as well. One detailed the abuse suffered in a public school for years. I think commenters (in other places, not this series, thankfully) who say things along the lines of, "Well, if you pull your kid because you don't like the school or the teachers, you're just teaching the kid that he never has to face up to his problems" can go rot. You face up to your problems when it's a couple mean kids who need a good reality check (then you take the detention for your 'unkind' words or *ahem* whatever... sigh). Or you face up to your problems when you haven't studied for a test and you flunk. I think we can all agree that almost always, people don't pull their kids from public school on a flighty little whim.

One thing I thought interesting was that although she had no stated religious reasons for homeschooling, that she wrote about homeschool parents feeling guilty when they send their children back to school. And that she felt the need to explain why she did that to her own kid. That made me sad.

I hope we are not so insular and so judgmental that we can't support someone else's decisions with their own kids. Parental rights, you know. The school funding issue and whether there should be schools at all is rather a separate issue. So long as there are schools, and so long as there are parents who want to enroll their children, I think we should try to be just as tolerant as we'd want someone else to be of us.

PS. I am going to a homeschooling convention soon. I am so seriously going to look around and see if I can find a tye-dying kit. The Happy Elf Homeschool needs to get groooovy. :)

The Look.

Leather jacket for about $5 at the thrift store. It really looks *sharp* on G and he has gotten a lot of compliments at school. Yes, it is missing a button, but it's otherwise in excellent condition and is old enough to be back in fashion again. This leather is super-soft, too. D bought it to tear up and make little projects out of, but G is giving it some new life. I wish, with the negative temperatures out there, that he did not go out to the bus stop to wait just as you see him here. Apparently wearing a hat or jacket/ being sensible is very out of fashion.

Youth Pastor Criteria?

Wow. What's sad is that every now and then, I've seen this sort of thing before, especially in churches that like to use the word "emergent." I've read a few different things about "emergent" churches and I'm still not very clear on what they are. One pastor announced that they knew they WERE an emergent church because he was wearing jeans on a Sunday morning. SO not getting that. (No, that's not where we attend. Thankfully.) This is one of those "it's funny because it's ALMOST true in a lot of places" videos.

Elf Ears!

Some pictures of genuine elf-ears. Elf's ear is the top picture and Emperor's is the bottom picture. You'll notice a slight crumpling on Elf's ear and a little point on Emperor's. Natural elf-ears do that. Now. Ready to see someone who wants to be an elf really, really badly? And will go to surgical lengths to do it? Yowie. Elf told me after viewing the photographs that his ears are "elfie enough," and he's happy with his ears the way they are now.

Seduction at the Thrift Store.

The thrift store was having a 98-cent sale, so I had to go and fight the crowds. Rose NEEDED some tops for winter.

I know what you're saying. You're going, "Wow, Mrs. C. Why are you going to go spend $10 on girly-looking items when you can have the kid wear a muddy, stained shirt decorated with a dinosaur skeleton and some grape juice for absolutely free?" But you see, I've noticed that when I dress the girl up like that, that she gets treated differently.

By differently, I mean "like every other boy in the family." D will come home and say hello to all the BOYS. Instead of saying, "Hi, Woodjie! Hi, Girlie!" he'll go, "Hi, Woodjie! Hi... Boy-ie! Well, but you look like a boy today, kid." Then he wouldn't ask, "Where Pretty-Pretty gooooo? Where's a Pretty-Pretty?" He'd just walk away after giving her a noogie like the other boys. And we just can't have that. Little Miss Pretty-Pretty deserves better, you see.

D says that if only I would "coordinate" the outfits properly, he wouldn't make that sort of mistake. I imagine he thinks that the grungy "bears playing football" shirt with blue and orange stripes goes with one of her pink pants? No? Ok, what does it go with? Not the leopard-skin looking stuff. Not the red things with flowers on them. Nor the purple velour pants with the ruffles.

Just Woodjie's old jeans. Yeah, that goes together... but you're back at square one that way.

So, the girl can wear several of Woodjie's old jeans and shorts if I sew little girlie embellishments on them so that they are appropriately sissified. But they need proper shirts to go with. I saw a really innnteresting T-shirt at the thrift store today that was a likely candidate. It was pink and had a little boy ruffian pictured on it with the words, "Tough Guys Wear Pink" across the top. I thought about getting it for Rose as a political statement, but then I thought D would probably have a fit, or at least get rid of the shirt.

I bought some pink zippy sleepers and assorted fleecy tops for her to wear this winter. While I was there, I was also instructed to look for leather material or leather belts. D likes leatherworking, you see, and he can cut off the hardware and re-use it, or even cut belts into smaller sections and make bracelets. So, if I saw good belts or leather jackets, I was supposed to get these and bring them home. I brought home two jackets.

One, I found out later from D, is not real leather. Well, it sure felt like leather, and it was worn enough that it no longer had any leather smell. (Um, maybe because it wasn't real leather in the first place? Ok.) This coat will do for the little girl when she gets older, though I think it is a little out of fashion. I'm not one to talk if I dress the kid in prairie dresses, though.

The other jacket was hideous. Remember the Michael Jackson leather coat look in the 80's? This coat was red and black and looked like that. I figured D would tear it up and use it for practice sewing or scrap. Otherwise the bold label reading, "Last Woman on Earth: The Sin of Seduction" on the inside would be a bit off-putting. D took a look at this 98-cent monstrosity and told me not only is it not leather, but did you read what it says inside here on the label? You did?

And of course, he's making fun of me all day for spending 98 cents on the Sin of Seduction. I put the stupid "Last Woman on Earth: The Sin of Seduction" coat back into the plastic bag and tied a knot in it so that D would stop flinging it around the room and talking about how he's feeling seduced. Now the bag is in the car for D to take back to the thrift store next time he goes. But I think he is having too much fun discussing Seduction at the Thrift Store, and do I want to see the bag in his car? It's in the back seat. Heh-heh. *nudge*

I am never going to live this down.

Sewing WIth Elf.

Please visit Elf and check out his creative endeavours. Tell him what a great job he did, too! He'd love to hear from you.

Homeschool Anniversary

Recently we celebrated two years of homeschooling! We made a strawberry cake with cherry chips and had sparkling cider to go with it. Note that the homeschoolers in question are in their footie pyjamas. Nothing like fulfilling those stereotypes for all to see on the blogs.

Islamic Dress?

http://winewriter.wordpress.com/2008/06/15/arabian-nights-traditional-moroccan-caftan-styles-give-way-to-bold-mixed-colors/

Maybe it isn't always what you think. I've been browsing this post and I'd like to share it with you. It's about a wedding and how people dress in an Islamic country. Not all Muslims (obviously) wear the full-length black burqua, but these dresses look modest and showy (it's a wedding, showy's ok!) and beautiful. Not something I could afford to wear, but the bright colours and looseness almost remind me of an Indian sari. BTW, did you know that a sari is not really a dress? It looks like a dress, but it's really just one HUGE cloth that you wrap around yourself just-so. I know this because when we lived in Australia the vice-consulate's family lived across the street from us. They were always having parties and serving yummy foods, and I got to come to some of them because I was best friends with their daughter. Some of the foods I could not eat because they were TOO spicy. But there was never any meat in them. Yet the children were well-nourished and the foods appeared well-balanced. The news stories about vegetarians and what-not starving their children ... well, it doesn't have to be that way if you know what you're doing. Anyway, I enjoy looking at this blog and others and am learning about other people in faraway places.

Thanks, Mrs. B!

Mrs. B has been losing a lot of weight lately. I didn't realize how much until she invited me over to let me go through stuff that is too big for her! I was very happy to do so. She was afraid I'd feel insulted by the offer. Why would I be insulted? If I don't want it, I don't have to take it home, and really, I'm just as fat with or without the offer, you know... It's useful to recycle and spend a little time fellowshipping together while I go through the goods.

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In fact, I'm going to pray we both lose weight at the same pace so I can have a new winter wardrobe in the fall. What you're seeing in the second picture is just a few of the things that hadn't been thrown in the washer yet. She presented me with the clothes perfectly clean, but because we have sensory issues in our house I must wash everything again so I can smell like "our" brand of dryer sheets LOL!

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I can't wait to wear some of this good stuff. As you can see from the top picture, I still look about six months pregnant. The BMI charts tell me I am MORE than 100 pounds over my ideal weight. Bleh. I'd be happy to just lose 50 and forget the chart.

FLDS is the NEW Fashion!

Wear a prairie skirt! Keep your hair long! Be modest! It's *so* in now.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24245576

The article tells us FLDS women look ugly on purpose so that their husbands aren't attracted to any one wife more than another. Oh, and so they don't get you awful outsiders a-lustin' after their bods. Why, we even have celebrity hairstylists talking about the fashionisticy of their hairdos! Their hairdo has something to say to you:

"It says 'I don't really care very much. I really don't have time to worry about the way that I look, because I have 20 children,'" Gibson said. "He's going from wife to wife to wife, so why should I look any better than the other ones?"

Oh, yeahrr. I *love* how these folks are portrayed as weirdos who all must dress exactly alike. They've obviously never been to their local middle school, where *every* teen girl must wear tight jeans and a tight shirt, preferably with some sort of sassy saying like, "Juicy and squeezable" or "I'm always right" or "you smell" on it. But see, FLDS women look like "throwbacks" from another time.

Hm.

These people also obviously haven't met many conservative Muslims, or United Pentecostals, or Hasidic Jews lately. They dress oddly, too. But see, they're not IN this year like the FLDS ladies:

"It's not outlandish to imagine the prairie look influencing today's styles, given that trends can come from unexpected places, and Sevigny is known as a style-setter. You can already find blouses with high necks and ruffles in stores, and puffed shoulders on short and long-sleeved shirts."

Can't wait to see one of these ladies on the cover of the fashion magazines this year! But *next* year, they'll be soooo out of fashion. Kind of like they were *last* year.

Verrrry Funny.

D HATES hairbows. He keeps stealing the ones I like to put on baby S. The latest time he stole S's hairbow he refused to tell me where he put it. Just go load the pictures, he said... OK, later he admitted he really hid it near the computer. We love D, but S's name was *Benjamin* until a week before delivery. It's a good name, he says... He also refused to buy ANY girl clothes. The boy ones are good enough!! I'm hoping he'll change his mind. I'm seeing a little hope because he recently brought home a pink sleeper for S.

Bad Fashion Choices: I am NOT ALONE!

It's somehow comforting to know that another 20-odd adults suffered through an entire childhood dressed just as badly I was. Can you find *me* in the picture?

That Sonogram Had Better Be Right!!

Had another sonogram yesterday and bought this dress to celebrate afterwards. It's a Polly Flinders handsmocked dress! Price 'em on Ebay or elsewhere online and you'll see what a bargain this 99-cent dress really is!! Cute, huh?? That sonogram had better be right!