On The Road Again OR Herbie Becomes a Man

We spent this weekend at Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos with the Wolfe cousins and grandparents, thanks to Grandma and Papa Wolfe’s long awaited Christmas present.  If you’ve never been to Great Wolf Lodge, GO.  It is truly a hotel made for kids, with an indoor water park, a scavenger hunt-like “MagiQuest” through the hotel, an arcade room, a kids' spa, and a toy/art room.

However this is not a post about GWL, but rather my thoughts on getting there, and also some special news about our sweet Herbie.

Dave and I drove separately as Maddie had a field trip on Friday and I had to teach.  Maddie and I headed north for the Poconos right after school let out, and the drive took me right back to college days.  My undergrad college was in northern PA and the drive there was gorgeous no matter the time of year.  I always took a lot of back roads until we got to route 80, and I still haven’t found a more picturesque drive.

Dad would always wash my windshield and kick my tires before I left, pleading me to drive carefully.  Then I would wind my way up GoldMine Road and through the ridges of the mountains.  There was a certain house that always had cats on the porch.  There was the deer crossing sign with the Rudolph nose glued to it.  There were sad, depressing areas intermingled with charming cottages and well-kept farmhouses.  In one town, there was a clock that was exactly one hour from home.  I would always try to beat it, try to get there in 58 or 59 minutes (I always checked my watch the minute the car left the driveway), but it rarely happened. 

Maddie asked me a few times if I was sure I was going the right way, and except for once when we stopped for a pit stop, then missed the ramp headed back onto the highway which caused us to take a little tour of Hazelton, I made it just fine.  But I know why she asked.  I have a bit of a reputation around here as the Driver Who Sometimes Gets Lost. 

Like the time we went to meet Dave who was on a business trip in Washington D.C.  I got so lost and drove around the city, frustrated and fuming, saying over and over, “No! Momma’s not lost!  The hotel is hiding!”, that I finally pulled the van over next to the Pentagon to check a map.  Well, I found out you don’t park your car next to the Pentagon.  A police car arrived within seconds and asked me what I was doing there, so  I told him I was lost.  My hugely pregnant belly and the fussing children in the backseat probably tipped him off that I wasn’t a terrorist, but I did earn myself a police escort to the correct road for the hotel.

It’s happened many times since then (though no more police escorts) but still, I have a reputation. I came by my driving habits honestly as my mom may be the WORST DRIVER EVER.  We call her Directionally Challenged (to her face).  In fact, if there was a Driver’s IQ, I would probably be considered gifted compared to her, and she would be one of those persons drooling in a corner.  Once she got lost getting from the gym near us to our house, about a one mile drive down the same road.  For those of you that live near me and know the area, she somehow ended up in the Brethren home area, before finally stopping at someone’s house and calling us up for directions.

Anyway, we’re back home, and we went to pick up Herbie at his babysitter’s house.  I asked my friend Wendy to babysit Herbie for us as she also owns a guinea pig, Ginger, and I knew she and her children would have fun with him.

Herbie did have a fun.  Maybe a little too much fun, if you catch my drift.  You can read Wendy’s blogpost here that tells you all about Herbie and Ginger’s, ahem… romantic getaway.  Needless to say, Herbie is home now sitting in a corner of his cage looking extremely bereft and, um, lovesick.  I did notice he gnawed a little notch in the door of his cage, however, and is carrying himself with a bit of a cocky swagger, his chest puffed out proudly, a little bit more of a bounce to his step than usual...

So, um, anybody want a baby guinea pig???

New Arrival!

The highlight of this weekend?  An addition to our family! 

We warmly welcome Dorothy Cutie Pie Wolfe, weight 0.2 ounces, length 1.5 inches, won by Jack at 12:33 p.m. on Saturday, April 17.

Obituary pending…

Button Your Lips and Listen Up

Every now and then I feel like a real parent.

And I realize how strange that may sound, having been a parent for a good ten years now, but parenthood is a way of life to me, not really a job description.  It’s just what I do, and until I started subbing again recently, it was really all I did (well, that and the occasional Bejeweled streak on Facebook, but I’ve totally kicked that addiction.  Honest.)

Every now and then, however, I get glimmers of the truth:   I. Am. A. Parent.  It happens mostly when I say things that remind me of my parents.  Like the other day I said, “Don’t slam the door!  What, do you think we live in a barn?!”   I’ve also been known to tell the kids their faces would freeze that way, and we’re not heating the whole backyard, and this room looks like a tornado hit it, and don’t roll those eyes at me, and make sure you bring home some change.

Sometimes, the things I say are so ludicrous, they make me feel like a parent…you know, the things you never in your life thought you’d ever say, a sentence so insane, you couldn’t have predicted it.  Such as

-“We do not swing from chandeliers.”

-“Get the caterpillar out of your mouth.”

-“Why would you wipe your poop on the wall?”

-“One pair of underwear at a time is plenty.”

-“How am I going to get all the vomit off this library book?”

-“Keep your hands out of your pants in church, please.”

-“We do not sleep with chocolate bunnies.”

And just last night-“Don’t wipe your nose with your underwear.”

 

When did I become my mother?  My mom’s famous line, “Don’t eat the fruit!” caused lots of laughter (among the rest of us---she’s still not amused) over the years.  We loved fruit.  We’d eat the grapes or plums or apricots or whatever she bought in a day or two then we’d be fruitless until the next grocery trip.  She was always trying to hide the fruit from us or warn us menacingly to stay away from it.  The fruit!  The good, healthy, delicious fruit!  And last night someone started munching on the few grapes that were left in the bowl, and I flashed to this morning when I’d have to pack lunches with no fruit, and I actually yelled, “Don’t eat the fruit!” 

Oh.  My.  Goodness.

Well, as long as I don’t start telling the kids, “If someday your children are half as terrible as you are, I will be happy!”

Hmmm.  I wonder if my mother is smiling right now?

Easter Eggs-tra

The week before Easter was a busy one:  we had a our candy field trip, an egg hunt, school parties, and I had a house to clean and food to prepare as I was hosting family for Easter dinner.  I just never got around to posting our egg dye photos (I also never got around to ironing the Easter outfits, but I’m not Wonder Woman).

We had a few snafus along the way.  First of all, I bought this little contraption years ago, and every Easter we begin our egg decorating by pounding out our frustrations in a colorful, noisy, and completely satisfying way.  The kids take turns choosing dyes to put in the bottom section, then they pound the pink button on the top which makes the egg spin and jump around in the dye.  You never know what your egg is going to look like when it's all finished.  It’s a lot of fun, but not very creative so we only do a few eggs each that way.  Unfortunately this year it broke down after just a few eggs got their turns.  At least everyone had a chance to smack that thing before it went to egg dye heaven.

Then came the best part.  We don’t dip our eggs, we use Hinkle’s dye and paint our eggs with Q-tips.  So I set out the dyes and reminded everyone that there is only a little bit of dye in each bottle, so we must be careful not to…

Um, yes, I spilled most of the pink.

And then I spilled a little yellow.

So our eggs are all slightly more green and purple and blue, but that’s okay.
 
Lots of concentration:

Lots of concentration and a little snot:

Lots of concentration and a little mugging for the camera:

They aren’t works of art, but don’t tell my kids that.  Each proudly thought his or her eggs were the most beautiful.  I hope you had a Happy Easter!

Quiet as…Some Other Kind of Rodent

Sometimes we play a really fun game.  We all love it.  The kids love it because it’s a challenge.  I love it because it’s quiet.  It’s called The Quiet Game.

The object of the game is to keep quiet.  Someone says, “Go!” and everyone must not make a peep.  If someone does break the silence, the game is over, and a new game is started.   I really cannot tell you how much I love The Quiet Game.

Today, Jack decided to play The Quiet Game with Herbie, the guinea pig.  You would think a guinea pig would be a sure thing at winning this game.

Strangely, he’s not.

Jack sat with Herbie on his chest, yelled “Go!” then stared and waited.  And within ten seconds that Herbie would start squeaking.  He lost the game every time.  

I believe I mentioned before how loquacious our Herbie is becoming.  It’s probably a good thing he doesn’t go to school, as he would certainly not be the teacher’s pet.  (HA!  Pet!) (You know, because teachers like it quiet, and Herbie is a pet--pun/irony rolled in one!)

Herbie would probably be the kid in detention, the class clown, the one in the corner wearing the dunce cap, the one who would have his mouth taped shut (my third grade teacher actually did this to a boy…she also made another boy hold a recess ball, arms straight out for 15 minutes), the one with all minuses on his report card for Personal Work Habits, the one who drops out of school, the one who gets fired from his job at McDonald’s, the one who ends up in prison trading cigarettes for baby carrots and getting all tattooed up and then dies alone in a cold, dark, wet alley in mid-November.

Oh my, I’m so glad he’s just a talkative little guinea pig.   I offer you a peaceful haiku to enjoy in his honor:

Herbie

chatty little guy

he loves his hay and carrots

but he poops too much

Glom

Dave tells me that my blog is taking too long to load, which usually means that I have too many posts with pictures which means it’s time for me to do some actual writing and stop relying on my photos to do the talking, which means I must squeeze my eyes shut and cajole my brain into coming up with some sort of idea  ‘round which to write.

But I really can’t come up with a solid multi-paragraph topic.  So how about a conglomeration of ideas?  A glom, I will call it, which sounds pretty fancy, when you think about it.

So, Ben is the Star of the Week at school, which means more work for me that he must bring in something special to share each day.  But this is his second time being Star of the Week and he doesn’t know what to take in.  I woke up last night and had an idea (I also woke up at a different time last night with the terrible thought that the guinea pig may have fleas because we’ve been letting him roam in the grass outside… is it any wonder the bags under my eyes look packed for vacation?) that I would show him a card trick and he could show his class during SOTW time and be a Magic Hero!

So I showed him.  It involved peeking at one card to clue you in on the card your “pigeon” was looking at.  When I explained it to him, he said, “But mom, that’s not magic, you’re just going through the cards picking out the right one.”  I explained that, yes indeed, I AM doing that, but it is amazing how I know which card to pick!  Then, with tears in his eyes, he said, “But that’s a trick, I thought you were going to show me magic!”  Which was when I explained there was no magic, it was all tricks, and he looked totally crestfallen and I realized I had just cruelly ripped away a tiny piece of his childhood.

He took his iPod to school to show his class.

Next up in the glom, it’s that time of year when people open their car windows so their dogs can stick their heads out to enjoy the breeze.  Whenever I am driving and see this, I say to the kids, “Oh, well, that’s just so sad.”  This will get their attention.  “What!? What!?” they yell (let’s face it, we all like to rubberneck at sad things).  So I say, “Just look at that kid in the car next to us.  Well, that is just the ugliest kid I ever saw.  All that hair on his face.  And that long nose.  And those ears, my gosh, that poor kid must get teased a lot.”

And they will protest and say, “Mom!  That’s a dog!  Not a kid!”  And I will deny it and boo-hoo the fact that the kid isn’t even buckled in, so it’s sad and dangerous, and I think I may need to call 911 to report this.  And there’s lots of laughing and the kids think I am HI-larious!  Probably in a few years they will be rolling their eyes at me and saying, “Mother.  Enough with the Ugly Kid Who’s a Dog joke.  It hasn’t been funny since the Obama administration.”  But for now I am THE BEST.

Finally, speaking of open windows, a gentle reminder to all you parents out there, that when your windows are open, you must yell at your children with kindness and respect, as all of your neighbors can hear your business.  Now, I am generally not a yeller.  I am more of a sigher.  Like, “<sigh> Who used permanent markers here on the carpet??? <sigh>”  But I do get worked up, and Dave is good at giving me an elbow to the ribs coupled with a chin point to the open window to remind me that the neighbors are in for a show if I don’t take it down a notch.

When I was a kid, we knew we were in trouble when mom (yes, the same person who takes my children on candy sprees) started closing the windows of the house.   Someone was about to get it! 

And it wasn’t going to be chocolate coated and sprinkled with gummy bears.

Happy as a…

…kid in a candy shop.

For two years now, Grandma H. has taken the kids and my niece to the Lebanon Farmer’s Market on Easter weekend.  She lets them pick out whatever they want.  Anything.  Can you imagine?  Let me tell you, I grew up with this woman, and she never set me loose in a candy shop with a blank check, so I’m always a little pouty. . .until she buys me my own bag of Milk Chocolate Wilbur Buds.  Then I just push down the grumps and go to my Chocolate Happy Place.

We call it the Candy Field Trip.








The kids don’t get to take this Easter bounty home with them.  No, Grandma takes it home with her and tortures them for three days, then she presents it to them on Easter Sunday.  Last year I weighed the kids’ Candy Loot:  3 pounds.

Each.

Now, I know some of you out there are rolling your eyes, calculating my yearly dental bill and predicting the years of Weight Watcher’s my children are going to need to endure in order to clean the sugar out of their future bloodstreams.  But let me tell you, they don’t eat it all in one sitting.  I will pack some in their lunches, and some will be after-school snacks and some will be dessert and some Dave and I will sneak out when they are looking the other way.  It will last them for months.  Or at least until the Memorial Day parade when they refill their candy bags with the Smarties the firetrucks throw at them.

When you’re a kid you’re bossed around a lot:  your meals are decided for you; your bedtime and bathtime and homework time are all regimented; asparagus is a requirement, not a choice; and sometimes you have to wear stupid, itchy clothes because they look handsome and you HATE that.

But kids get to have candy.  It’s one of their few comforts, something to call their own, even if they’re not allowed to indulge whenever, wherever.

Now please excuse me.  The Wilbur Buds are calling my name.

Feeling Fool From Supper

I try to fool the kids a little bit every April Fool’s Day.  This year I snuck some plastic bugs into their school lunches, but they came home unimpressed.  Hmph.

But that’s okay, because I had another trick on the back burner, so to speak:  meatloaf cupcakes with mashed potato frosting and lemon jello lemonade.

First, I told them we were having cupcakes for supper to celebrate the first night of Easter break.  Excitement!  Doubt.  Really??!!   Could she have?  Oh my gosh!  She did!

Maddie and Jack were thrilled…then…they got the joke and thought mom was pretty funny.

But Ben…

…was really really really really really disappointed with meatloaf cupcakes instead of the real thing.  REALLY sad.  Just look at that face!  I just want to run over to the stove and whip him up a batch of carrot cake cupcakes.

Well, I told them I had known they’d be disappointed with the cupcakes so I had made them fresh squeezed lemonade…

All was forgiven, and mom is now the reigning Queen of Fools.

Wait, that doesn’t sound as good as I thought it would…