I'm Lucky Santa Even Thinks About Visiting My House

I can only assume this was an assignment from about the sixth grade. I know I would have never insulted such an important person with this kind of writing. Thank goodness Santa is so forgiving and understands I had to write it, it was for a grade! (Please excuse the poor grammar, I am transcribing it exactly as written in my sixth grade cursive.)

My letter to Santa (circa 1984)

Dear Santa Claus,

How are you, my fine fat friend? I know the reason you're fat, because you eat all the food that everybody leaves out. I saw a picture of Mrs. Claus, and boy is she getting fat. Why doesn't she go on a diet? Don't your reindeer get tired of pulling such a heavy person like you? How do you slide down the chimney when your so fat? Do you put grease around your belly? You should join the men's aerobics club so you can wear away some of that fat?

I've always wondered about your cheeks, do you wear make-up like Boy George does? I think you should dye your hair a different color like brown or black because then you won't look so old. Do you get your beard curled by Vidal Sassoon? What do you put in your pipe to keep you so jolly?

You should tell your elves to start planning before hand and not wait till the last month. Kids don't like cheap products rushed through an assembly line. Why do you think kids toys break so easily sometimes? It's because the elves put them together so clumsily. They should take more care in their work.

I hope you aren't offended by this it's just a little bit of constructive criticism. Tell everyone "hi" for me and I'll be waiting for you. Have a Merry Christmas!

Love,
Heather Stang

Truly blasphemous, isn't it! Can you imagine the teacher's glee as they thought up this assignment. My kids are lucky Santa is still willing to visit after a letter like that!

I have to note that I lived in England at the time I wrote this, so I am using that as my excuse for the Boy George reference. He was really popular there in the mid 80's.

Son Hits Baseball

Ian played his last T-ball game of the season yesterday on his community center league team and it was great. My mom, sister, and three nieces were all here to witness the final game and cheer Ian and his teammates on to a fun game. (They don't keep score in this league, so no victories or defeats.)

After several games of hitting off the tee (T?), this week Ian had the opportunity to hit the ball from the coach pitching it. On Monday, his team only got up to bat once, and in Ian's one opportunity to hit it, he couldn't connect. The tee was brought in and he hit off the tee.

But yesterday was a different story. He missed the first pitch, but connected solidly with the second pitch and sent the ball soaring through the air to a little past the middle of the infield. I was so excited for him that I found myself shouting, "Run, Ian, run!" along with my mom, sister, nieces and daughters. When he got to first base he had a smile plastered across his face that lit the whole field up. So did I.

Each team only played one inning, and after every kid hit they called the game. The kids then lined up and received a medal for their T-ball season and gathered for one last team picture. I have no picture of this occasion because had I brought my camera I would have lost my "Bad mom of the Month" award. My sister, however, captured the moments on her camera and after I receive them I will share them with the world.

We celebrated with lunch at McDonald's and Ian positively beamed the whole time. When we got home Ian called his Dad to share with him the momentous achievement (getting the medal, not the hit!) and had fun playing with all of his cousins.

It was a great end to Ian's first T-ball season.

Kids Say The Darndest Things - Again

My first baby, Ian, who is almost now seven years old, is growing amazingly fast. Despite his fiery temper, he has one of the most tender hearts I have ever witnessed in a person. Tonight, he shared with me one of the sweetest things I've ever heard him say.

While getting ready for bed, I was laying next to Ian on his bed and he says to me, "Mom, I just made myself cry a little."

"Why did you make yourself cry?" I ask him.


"Because I just thought that even though I'm big on the outside, in my heart I'm still your little boy."

There just aren't enough hugs and kisses a son can receive for saying something like that to his mom. But I'll try.

Another Great Use For Mr. Clean

I am almost embarrassed to write about this, but I can't help the ecstatic feeling I have every time I look at my bathtub and see it's beautiful white interior. It is as clean as the day it was installed, and it hasn't been that way for YEARS.

Even though I have already plugged this product once before on my blog, I have to gush about it one more time. The Mr. Clean Magic Eraser is truly a wonderful cleaning product.

I have tried many techniques to try to rid our tub of ground in dirt around the drain and other parts of the bottom of the tub. I especially stepped up my cleaning efforts around the time we put our house up for sale. I didn't want prospective buyers to look into our one bathtub and see grime.

But all of my efforts were less than satisfactory. I used scrubber bubbles, applied twice, and with extra tough rubbing and scrubbing, but that only cleared up a little of the problem. I added Soft Scrub with bleach, and let it sit for several minutes. That helped, but I envisioned having to coat my entire tub floor with a bottle of the stuff, and I'm way too cheap to use a whole bottle on one cleaning effort I wasn't sure would work anyway.

Then last week, I had an epiphany. Maybe, just maybe, the Mr. Clean Magic Eraser could do the job. So, after cleaning the whole tub with my usual scrubber bubbles regimen, I waited for the tub to be relatively dry, soaked my Magic Eraser, squeezed it out, and gave it a try.

To my delight, with several gentle rubs over the offending areas, my tub was becoming clean, really clean. I was so thrilled I told Brendan as soon as he walked in the door from the train that he "just had to look at the tub because he would be amazed."

I'm thrilled because now when we leave this house to the new buyers, I won't be embarrassed by my bathtub. But I'm even more happy about the prospect that even if the sellers of our new house don't know this great secret, I can fix the tubs if they have ground in dirt in them. Me and Mr. Clean.

David Hasselhoff's Video

You have to see it to believe it.

The End Of Fussiness

No parent should be without this book that I found at the library last month. It is called "Fussbusters On The Go" by Carol Baicker-McKee and is an excellent resource for weary parents, new parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and any caretaker of small children. This book saved my dinner tonight, and has turned my kids hands into magnets with mine when crossing the street. I kid you not!

I actually haven't finished the book, although it is an easy read. (I've actually renewed it once, and I'm hoping to get through it before the next due date!) Each chapter goes over situations where various forms of fussing are common and offers a multitude of common sense or easy ideas to implement when faced with the situation. The best part of the book is it is geared towards the pre-school set, with ideas designed specifically for two, three and four year olds. However, most of the ideas can be adapted for older children easily.

After reading a few chapters I was ready to try one of the suggestions: Turning things kids don't want to do into a game, like Simon Says. So, in the Community Center parking lot, where the kids and I can be seen frequenting regularly these days, I gave it a try. Instead of saying the usual, everyone hold a hand, I said, "Simon says find a hand to hold." Emma's eyes lit up at the words "Simon Says" and quickly gave me one of her hands. Zoe, not wanting to miss out on the fun, grabbed my other hand and for the first time in weeks, I had no arguments with my kids holding my hands in the parking lot.

Hmmm. Maybe this just might work! My kids are traditionally pokey when walking from one end of the community center to the other, or they do the complete opposite, and run the length of the hallway from dance rooms to library. I have been frustrated on more than one occasion by this behavior, and decided to use a little Follow The Leader to see if the kids would keep up with me, and also not run into all the other patrons at the center. I'm pleased to say it worked like a charm, although I had to swallow a little pride and just go for it when I walked down the hall flapping my arms like a chicken.

Then, to my horror, the book was due, and I wasn't even half way through yet. It had given me some of my sanity back, and I decided I needed to read more. Sure enough, tonight the stuff I read last night (after renewal) came into play.

Emma, who will eat peas, green beans, and tortilla encrusted Tilapia, is very difficult to feed at most meals. Brendan and I are always cajoling her to eat three bites of this and two bites of that, and just try the damn shells and cheese, they're good! We have in the past let her eat nothing, then put her to bed with no snacks or anything, thinking she would learn to eat dinner this way. But, after a few nights when she has done this, and each time throwing up in the middle of the night or morning, we are convinced she must eat a minimum amount of food at dinner. So, we've been reduced to counting bites.

But not tonight. Not exactly, anyways. Emma was sitting refusing to eat pan fried chicken breast, canned peaches, and shells in white cheddar sauce. She turned her head to the side, said she didn't like what I made for dinner, and wasn't going to eat it. To make matters worse, she didn't take a nap today, and was literally falling asleep in her chair. She did not appreciate us waking her up, and especially wasn't happy with our requests to eat her dinner. She sat with tears filling her eyes and an incredibly pouty lip sticking out from below her nose.

I could feel the tension at the table rising, and decided to give my Fussbuster's knowledge another try. I looked straight at Emma and asked her if she had a Grouchy Snake inside of her. She looked at me, smiled, and nodded her head. I asked her if she wanted me to take it out. She smiled and nodded her head again. So, I got up from my seat and proceeded to remove a very long, albeit imaginary, Grouchy Snake out of Emma's ear and threw it into the garbage can.

By this time Emma was all out giggling and ready to eat a little of her dinner. We still counted her bites, but there was no struggle and she actually ate one extra bite of chicken.

This is one of those books that can help you immediately. Every parent truly needs this.

Dempsey

We were introduced to my sister-in-law's and brother-in-law's new puppy, Dempsey, on the Fourth of July at my father-in-law's house. He enchanted my kids, my husband, my husband's aunts and pretty much anyone else in a 100 foot radius of his cuteness.

I have to admit, even I fell in love with the little guy. Not that it's hard for me to do. I pretty much love all cute and fuzzy animals, and sweet little baby animals are hard to resist.

But, and here is where I was surprised, I started actually considering the remote possibility of getting a dog someday. Don't tell Brendan.

Happy Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July from the McKillip's!

Great Aspirations

While cleaning out the crawl space to ready ourselves for our big move at the end of the month, I found several papers I wrote while in elementary school. While my handwriting is not too bad, the content of the writing is pretty funny. I can't believe some of the things I wrote!

Here is a sample from what appears to be fourth or fifth grade. The assignment was: "Pretend you just became a parent." To help me focus my thoughts I was given these further helpful ideas: What are your hopes and dreams for your child? Think about the parents you know. How will you be the same? How will you be different?

I hope to have two boys and two girls. I want them to be born in Findlay Ohio and I want them to grow up in Findlay Ohio. I want them to visit Disneyland and Disneyworld and lots of other amusement parks when they are little. I want one of my boys to be a dentist and one of them to work at Marathon. I want my two girls to be house wives. The girls are the same like my mother because they are house wives. The boy thats going to be a dentist is different than my Dad because my Dad isn't a dentist. The one that is going to work at Marathon is the same as my Dad because my Dad works at Marathon.

Brendan says I lived in a time warp and am "so Leave It To Beaver." I can only imagine my early 80's teacher's response to my lofty goals. I prefer to call it a Smurfy upbringing with flatulent, beer swilling giants.

Update: I have achieved a few of these goals now that I'm a parent. I am a housewife (preferred title: Stay-at-home nosewiper) with only three kids - one boy and two girls. None were born in Findlay, but one was born in Ohio. We have not visited any major theme parks yet, and my son has plans of being a bounty hunter/ author when he grows up, so no dice there. I guess I'll have to step up the pressure to visit Disney to make most of my childhood dreams come true.

The Stang Clan

My father-in-law, Brian, came over today to help Brendan and I clean out our crawl space and basement for the radon reduction people to come on Thursday and put in their expensive expulsion system so that the buyers of our home don't get lung cancer. We have lived here for six years, and in that time increased the size of our family from three to five. Just as the size of our family has grown, so has the amount of stuff we've accumulated.

After a lot of hard work, done mostly by Brendan and his Dad, the basement looked ready for the radon guys to come. Much of the stuff came upstairs to our living and dining room. Here among the many boxes, I found one of my old boxes that my mom kept for me as a kid. In it were numerous pieces of art and several writing "samples" of mine from elementary school and junior high. It also contained a few books, my girl scout sash complete with sewn on patches, a miniature porcelain tea set that I'm going to save for the girls to play with at the new house, some old shirts I wore on various sports teams, and a big bag of clothes I dressed my various baby dolls up in.

It was great fun taking a trip down memory lane, especially seeing some of the pictures I'd drawn or made in art class and remembering them vividly after seeing them. In the box was my T-ball shirt, which I showed to Ian since he is playing his first year of T-ball. As much fun as it was looking at all my old valentines from one year (all but two were homemade, what a change from nowadays!), I knew I had to start getting rid of stuff. I made a pile to go out to the trash, and a much smaller pile of papers I just can't part with yet. (I plan on sharing some of my "gems" here soon - keep checking!)

After dinner I went back to the box and decided to share some of my worse writing attempts with Brendan. I read a horrible haiku about Autumn as well as an ode to the color yellow. Before I read the yellow poem, I introduced it as written by Heather, when she was a Stang (my maiden name).

Ian asked what a "Stang" was. Brendan replied that they were a clan of giants that hail from central Ohio with special skills in flatulance and beer drinking.

A pretty accurate description. Though he left out our true specialties: loud talking and the making of many babies.

Beware E-mails From The In-Laws

I received a forwarded e-mail from my mother-in-law today and was a little surprised. I rarely receive e-mails from her, we usually use the phone for communication, and I don't think any of the e-mails I have received from her have been forwards, they're usually direct messages.

So as I scanned my ten or so new messages and weeded out the spam, I felt a little shocked and almost embarrassed when I saw the subject line of the e-mail: "fwd: Best Positions In Bed." That's not usually a subject line you want to see in an e-mail from your mother-in-law!

Knowing my MIL, I assumed it couldn't be what it sounded like and opened the e-mail. To my great relief, it was a bunch of really cute pictures of dogs and cats sleeping in funny positions.

My world is right again.

Kids Say the Darndest Things

We've had several funny conversations with our kids this past week. Here are two that stand out and still make us giggle.

At dinner one night, Zoe was causing trouble with crying and whining, but not giving us any reason as to why she was behaving ths way. Brendan told her if she didn't stop, she'd go to her room. Well, Brendan carried Zoe upstairs and she stayed there for a few minutes. When enough time elapsed that it was time to get her out, I asked Brendan if he wanted to get her, or if I should go get her. He said it didn't matter. I responded that maybe he should go get her because I didn't want him to look like the bad guy, since he was the one who put her there in the first place.

Emma's response to hearing this: "Daddy doesn't look like a bad guy."

Yesterday I took the kids to Blackberry Farm. It is a historical park with activities for kids, like a train ride, carousel ride, pony rides, and pioneer cabins. While waiting in line for the pony rides, Ian read every sign posted. All of a sudden he turned to me and asked, "Mom, am I over 70 libs?"

I didn't understand what he was talking about until I saw the large sign posted at the entrance to the ride, "No riders over 70 lbs."

Ridiculous Conversations That I Have With My Kids

We were driving to Blackberry Farm today when I mentioned to Ian that it would be the Fourth of July in about two weeks. He loves Independence Day because it means a big parade downtown and a fun patriotic dessert that I whip up. Ian's birthday also happens to be in July and he posed the question, "What if I had been born on the Fourth of July?" I'm sure the thought of going to a parade every year on his birthday thrilled him tremendously.

We then talked about how it might be fun sometimes, but concluded that we would rather have our birthdays on non-major holidays. I then said, "If you were born on the Fourth of July, you'd have been a red, white and blue baby." No response from any of the kids in the van for at least thirty seconds. So I repeat what I said about a red, white and blue baby. Again, no response for about thirty seconds, although Emma seems to be turning her head around and straining to see something out of her window. "Where?" Emma asks.

"No, there is no red, white and blue baby. I said, 'If Ian had been born on the fourth of July, HE would have been a red white and blue baby,'" I tell Emma.

Silence. Then Ian says, "Who is?"

"Never mind," I answer.

Funny Signs

Now that Ian is out of school and I have all three kids home all day everyday for the summer, we've been driving around Aurora a lot more either going to the pool, a class, or some other fun location. In doing all this driving to parts of the city we don't normally frequent, I have seen a few funny (or at least odd) signs.

The first sign was out in front of a large older house. The house looked well-maintained from the outside, and seemed to have some of that charm that houses built before the 1960's often have. The sign in the yard read "For Sale Soon." Not "For Sale," but "For Sale Soon." Why the "soon"? Are they hoping prospective home buyers will wait until they see the actual for sale sign and then make a special appointment to see the house? Will it make buyers who are already looking think, wait, I might like this house even though I've never seen the inside and I should wait until it goes on the market in case it is the house for me? I just don't understand the necessity of a sign like that.

The second sign I saw on my way to Blackberry Farm today. I was driving down Galena Boulevard where there are several offices for lawyers, realtors, and other small businesses. We passed a sign for Liam Dixon, Attorney At Law. Underneath it in very large letters and numbers was a phone number, presumably for anyone needing to contact Liam Dixon, Esq. As the daughter-in-law of a judge and sister-in-law of a lawyer, I need to tread lightly here, but I think they would agree with me that it is lawyers like this that give the rest of them a bad name. His phone number was "1-800-NOT GUILTY." Seriously! It was only a matter of time before some lawyer snatched that number up. Fortunately for me, it is a lawyer that works in my hometown.

More Crucifixion Fixation

My almost seven year old son draws pictures of the crucifixion and discusses breaking bread over dinner. My youngest daughter, Zoe, who is only two, has noticed the crucifix in church and the one right outside her bedroom door. Each night before she goes to bed, Zoe gives Brendan a hug and a kiss in the hallway outside her room before I take her into her room to sing goodnight songs and lay her down in the crib. Lately Zoe's noticed Jesus' physical appearance on the cross in the hallway and will imitate it by putting out her arms, closing her eyes, and making her face as serious as she can. Then she points at the cross and says "Nigh nigh Eee" (Night, Night Jesus.)

As cute as that is, it gets even better. She then lowers her voice and says, "Nigh nigh" back to herself, from Jesus. She's a great sleeper, and wouldn't you be too if Jesus personally said good night to you every night?

The Catholic Education Is Paying Off - Part 2

First my son is drawing crucifixion pictures on the driveway. Tonight eating dinner we further discovered his love of learning about Jesus and His life.

I made strawberry soup, Chicken Kiev, broccoli, and sour cream biscuits for dinner. Ian devoured the soup, enjoyed his chicken, passed on the broccoli, and eyed the sour cream biscuits suspiciously. As I usually make muffins or rolls with a meal for a bread component, my kids aren't used to the unusal shape of a drop biscuit with it's browned peaks and funny lumpy shape. After watching his Dad and I, and even his little sister eat one, he decided to give one of the biscuits a try. He picked one up and noticed that it was quite large. Handing it to me, Ian asked me "Can you break this for me?" As I picked up my knife to cut it in the middle, he said, "Break it like Jesus broke bread. Jesus didn't have a knife."

Tuition dollars at work!

A Trip To The Museum

I never mentioned that we sold our house last week! At least, it's under contract. The buyers had their home inspection today of our home, which meant we (the kids and I) had to get out of the house. Since the inspection began at 9:00, I chose the DuPage Children's Museum as our destination because the kids love it, we have a membership that we paid for so we might as well use it, and it opens at 9:00.

We arrived and Ian and Zoe immediately headed for the mirrored rooms while Emma ran off to the wall of straws that you push your hand into and it leaves the impression of your hand. After moving on they all discovered the room with the multicolored lights and twirling disco ball. After running into the room, they quickly realized that by standing on a certain line in the room, they could make music play. This caused a flurry of jumping and dancing on and off the line to make the music play.

What I love about the Children's Museum is that it is always changing. The same beloved exhibits are always there, but they often add new twists to the exhibits, or new exhibits entirely. Today we found a color wall that allowed you to change the colors and patterns on the wall by turning various knobs. Ian managed to make stripes, then spots, then an all white screen. Really neat!

There is a shadow room that captures your shadow for about 30 seconds for you to look at that we had a lot of fun in by raising our arms or our legs before the flash went off. At one point all four of us had our arms and legs spread, and after the flash exploded, I had a really amazing feeling about how neat it was to be experiencing this with my kids, all together.

On the second floor of the museum is an everchanging special exhibit. At one time it was model trains, which I took Ian to during the height of his train mania and we spent at least an hour up there watching the trains. Today it was an exhibit about Japan and Japanese animation. There was a whole part about Hayao Miyazaki and his films. The girls took off their shoes and pretended to have tea in a Japanese room while Ian and I found a stop action animation area where we made our own short movies. We both agreed on our way home that making our own little movies wasa our favorite part of the museum.

I think my favorite experience of the day, though, was with Zoe. She LOVES puzzles right now and I found a table that had some rubber puzzles on top. I sat down with her to help her with the puzzles and as she brought up a piece of the puzzle for some help, I would say, "Hmmmmm, where does this go?" A few pieces later and Zoe was saying, "Hmmmmmm" every time she looked for where the piece of the puzzle went. I hadn't even realized I was doing it until I heard Zoe do it. I tried to find as many puzzles on that table to do with her just so I could hear her say, "Hmmmmmmm" over and over again.

It was a great morning out, now hopefully the inspection news will also be good.

Funny Emma Quote of the Day

While waiting for Ian to receive his blue belt in karate, we watched as other students received their various colored belts as they advanced rank. One of the boy's names was Ariel, and when Emma heard Sensie Jackie call out his name her ears immediately perked up. Excitedly, she leaned over to me and said, "That's just like the Little Mermaid, except he's black, and he's a boy."

Survival Of The Fittest

Emma, my almost four year old, has developed a curious phobia of going upstairs alone. I would understand if it was just at night or when it is dark, but she is afraid first thing in the morning, when the sun is shining bright and the birds are chirping through the open windows. Almost every morning she requests me to fetch something for her, a toy, a book, her clothes. I usually tell her to get it herself, after which she cajoles and whines and asks me to pleeeeease go up and get whatever item is of such dire importance that it needs to be gotten right now. I usually stand firm, which leads to Emma trying to figure out a way to get her prize possession of the moment without actually going up the stairs by herself.

This morning was no exception. Emma just had to have her Fancy Cat, her stuffed cat that we recently made at Build-A-Bear Workshop courtesy of Christmas giftcards from her Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Patrick. When I told her no, that she could get it, she decided that if Zoe, her two year old sister would accompany her, she could get Fancy Cat herself. So, after several times of asking Zoe to go upstairs with her, Emma retreived Fancy Cat with little sister in tow. I'm not really sure what protection Zoe would bring Emma, I think she'd probably just push Zoe at whatever monster was lurking upstairs and hope that by the time it was finished eating her baby sister, she'd be safe back downstairs with her mom and brother.

Pool Cuties!

These are pictures I took of my kids today playing in the "pool" in our backyard. They had a great time simply splashing the water around, sliding down the little built in slide and eating Superman popsicles in the backyard. Zoe loves the water in a pool and happily gets wet from head to toe. Emma spent much of her time pretending to be a mermaid by posing with her legs together to one side and leaning her head to the other side. I think she has been strongly influenced by the Barbie Mermaidia book I bought her at the book fair at Ian's school. Ian tried to make the biggest waves he could by sliding down the little slide with his knees together. He also enjoyed lounging in a green innertube. I just enjoyed the warm weather, sipped on an iced coffee and snapped loads of pictures!