Better (well) Read than Dead

An old high school friend of mine (who doesn't have children) recently posted on Facebook:

A co-worker says that once you have kids, you don't time to read anymore. Is this true?

The long list of comments then reiterated what the co-worker said, talking about how motherhood prevents them from having the time to read.

I just wanted to yell out, NO! DON'T BELIEVE THEM! IT'S NOT TRUE!

I'm posting my "Shelfari" list on the top of this blog to prove that moms do read. I've been in a book club for over five years now and I love the variety of books and genres this gets me to read. I'm constantly going up to my friends (and I'll admit it, even strangers) and asking them what they're reading. My kids know that every night at 8:30 PM is "mom's reading time." Even my cat knows it (she knows that that means cuddle time).

I'm lucky in that my work gives us a paid day off every year for our birthday, and I use that day to lay in bed all day reading. My daughter, Frances, is now a total book worm, too. She constantly has a book in her hands (I'm hoping the other two will follow suit).

Now my mother, Dot, has always been an avid reader. Even with nine kids and five foster kids and running a daycare center out of her home (yes, we were THAT house in the neighborhood), she was always reading. She makes a point of reading all the Newbery Award winners (something I also do) and she loves, loves, loves Charles Dickens.

Don't have time to read because you have kids? Then read aloud to your children! Even the most adult books will have something you can read to them. My children love David Sedaris books -- though I read to them very edited chapters (they especially like the dying mouse story).

All I can say is, better (well) read than dead.

Those Aren't Bath Beads!

Saturday night, Alice-Grace was taking a bath. Our cat, Roger, walked into the bathroom, saw that she was in the tub, and THREW UP IN THE WATER! Poor Alice-Grace was scrambling up the walls like a crazed spider monkey. It was so gross.

The other day, Roger was sitting calmly and we one at a time held our hand out to her. She nuzzled up to Frances, ignored Nigel, and tried to shred all the skin off of Alice-Grace's limb.

Once Roger was hiding in a bag and whenever Alice-Grace walked by, she would jump out and attack her legs. If anyone else walked by, the cat would just ignore them.

What is with my cat's obsession with trying to kill my youngest child?

Happy New Year!

I'll admit it. I love New Year's. It's my favorite holiday. I don't even do anything for the holiday, I just love having that clean slate (As Anne Shirley would say, "Tomorrow is always fresh with no mistakes in it").

So my resolution for 2011 is to be more "in the moment."

I'm trying to avoid multitasking (I deplore multitasking) and to really think about what I'm doing, be more cognizant of my actions, ask myself what are my motivations for doing something before I do it.

This is actually something that I started about six months ago, but I'm still a work in progress.

It started with going to Frances' play. I just decided that I didn't want to worry about taking pictures or filming it. I'm so distracted by the tools in my hands that I end up not even enjoying the play. And let's be honest, it's not like I'm going to watch the video of it later -- but just in case I did want to, I made Nigel film it (and no, I haven't watched the video).

Then when my kids were taking various classes (Alice Grace in gymnastics and Jeffrey in parkour), I decided to purposely not take anything with me. Instead of reading or knitting, I watched them participate. They loved that I was there cheering them on and seeing every move they made.

Now before I buy something or eat something, I ask myself, "Do I really need this? Am I just bored? Is it worth it?"

So if you see me doing something and I don't stop right away to say hi, I'm not being rude, I'm just waiting until I finish so I can give you my full, undivided attention. So that's my goal for 2011.

An Apple a Day...

In our quest to not buy any groceries this month, I decided to get into our long-term food storage (otherwise known as Alice-Grace's "bed") and open up a #10 can of powdered apple juice and try it out.

First of all, the color is...shall we say...disturbing. The juice was a sickly, brown, sewer-y looking color. Yuck.

But it's the taste that matters, right? Well, it tastes EXACTLY like green apple flavored Jolly Rancher candies. Not exactly something I want to drink.

But what do I know? Did you know that Jolly Rancher also makes a soda pop? I've never seen it (and after tasting this "apple juice," now I know why).
I must admit that Alice-Grace and Jeffrey absolutely LOVED it. Of course, they're also known for eating powdered sugar out of the bag with a spoon.

Nigel, Frances and I definitely did NOT like it. I won't be buying any more #10 cans of this in the future. I'll stick to things I know that I like (like packets of cherry Kool-Aid -- I love me some cherry Kool-Aid).

Too Immature for Maturation

The elementary school's "maturation" program was yesterday. The school strongly encouraged parents to attend.

Frances STRONGLY encouraged that I did not.

Why not? Just because I threatened to yell out:

"Excuse me, nurse? When should I expect my daughter's tail to fall off?"

or

"OK, enough talk about periods. It's the proper use of the semicolon that I don't understand!"

The only thing I remember from my elementary school's maturation program was the boy sitting next to me breaking a thermometer in the middle of a movie called something like "Betty Finds a Hair."

I remember the school nurse being concerned about the broken glass. In those days, NO ONE cared about a little mercury poisoning. In fact, the school nurse would put mercurochrome on our cuts and scrapes (because you really want those heavy metals to go DIRECTLY into your blood stream). In fact, they even marketed games to kids with mercury in them. Does anyone remember this one?


If you were really cool, you would break the toy open so you could play with the mercury in your bare hands.

Maybe it's a metaphor for maturation classes in the pre-AIDS days. We didn't know back then what could hurt and potentially kill us.

Yet Another Reason Why I'm Mad My Kid's Speech Therapist Moved Away

A recent conversation at our house--

Frances: Here's our school's Scholastic book order. There's a book I want about people who have vanished.

Lois: Oh, like Amelia Earhart?

Frances: Yeah, and some author vanished, too.

Alice-Grace: Kids in my class at school have vanished.

Lois: They have?

Alice-Grace: Yeah. Luis, Omar, Maria, Jose...

Lois: Do you mean they're Spanish?

Alice-Grace: Yeah, that's what I said. Vanish.

2009 Christmas Newsletter

Christmas 2009 for Lois & Family

Lois spent 2009 NOT cleaning her house, NOT scrapbooking, NOT making her kids dinner, and best of all, in this crazy economy, Lois spent the year NOT unemployed.

Nigel spent the year NOT being a starving artist (he actually sold many paintings), NOT getting away from scouts (he went from Webelos leader to Cub Master), but best of all, Nigel did NOT pop any more holes in his lungs.

Frances finished the year NOT reading classic literature when there's a good ghost story or alien book near by, NOT failing in school and NOT being one of those horrible children you see on an MTV reality show.

Jeffrey spent 2009 NOT cleaning up his Legos, NOT giving up his plans for his own Viking-themed amusement park, and NOT letting up on lecturing his family on NOT spending money.

Alice-Grace pretty much spent this last year doing "skin the cat" on an old broom stick that she places between the arm rests of the couch and love seat. Luckily, she has NOT been taken to the emergency room -- yet.

Stupid Rabbit ("Stew" for short) has NOT figured out that he's only supposed to pooh in his cage, NOT realized that he's a vegetarian, and it has NOT dawned on him that a balloon is NOT a girl rabbit.

Here's to a very merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year from our family to yours.

Priceless

Jeffrey and Alice-Grace had play dates, so I wanted to do something special with Frances (but didn't want to spend any money). Here's what we did:

Two craft projects (a cute embossed Christmas card and an adorable snowflake ornament -- free make & take day) and five sheets of card stock (coupon) at a scrapbooking store at the local mall = $0.00

One really large (though they called it a small) ice-cream cone (coupon) at the food court = $0.00

Frances being able to spend time with her parents without any annoying younger siblings = priceless

I think it's time for some hearing aids...

A conversation at our house last night (obviously we all need to get our hearing checked).

MICHAEL SCOTT (From TV's "The Office"): Oh, you must pass the dungeon wisdom test.

JEFFREY: Mushroom seeds? Everyone knows that mushrooms don't have seeds.

FRANCES: What about Muslims?

Do you "Wonder"?

"Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium"

I know it got bad reviews, but I love this movie. We just checked it out from the library and I think I've seen it three times. It just cracks me up and inspires me. My 11-year-old Frances balled her eyes out and cried even more when she found out that the movie isn't based on a real toy store. It's rated G and stars Dustin Hoffman (who is hilarious), Natalie Portman (who actually acts, as opposed to what she does in those horrible "Star Wars" movies), Jason Bateman (loved him in "Arrested Development") and a zebra* named Mortimor.

*According to the "behind the scenes" extras on the DVD, you can't just bring in one zebra to be in a film. You have to have another zebra AND a pony. I think I'm going to bring that up with my boss, "Sorry, if I'm going to work here, I'm going to have to have another woman named Lois AND a pony at my cubicle."

Mountain House Freeze-Dried Noodles and Chicken

This is chicken with noodles in a light chicken broth sauce with some red peppers and herbs. I really liked this, but Nigel and the kids prefered the spaghetti (again, Jeffrey wouldn't try it). As Frances put it, "It would've been better without the vegetables."

There were LOTS of noodles (as opposed to the spaghetti), but the chicken was chopped, pressed and formed. Before when I've had freeze-dried chicken, it was shredded, but this still tasted good. Nigel thought it would be glorified ramen, and was pleasantly surprised by its home-made taste (he especially liked the red peppers).

Our Final Analysis:

I would definitely buy it, but the rest of my family wasn't that thrilled.

Mountain House Freeze-Dried Scrambled Eggs with Bacon

Jeffrey loved this! And he hates everything! He kept going on and on about how it tastes just like scrambled eggs and bacon (which it is). Frances and Alice-Grace weren't as thrilled (but then again, they don't like bacon or scrambled eggs to begin with). Nigel and I liked it, but the texture of the eggs is a little different. Not bad, just different.

I should note that these meals come in pouches and they're completely dry. All you have to do is add boiling hot water, stir, seal the pouch back up and wait 5-10 minutes. With the spaghetti, you just ate it from the pouch, but with the eggs, you had to drain the excess water out first. This was hard to do without losing all the tiny bacon pieces along with the water.

Our Final Analysis:

Tasted good, but not sure if we'd like a big can of it

No more History Channel for you, young lady!

The other day Nigel was coming home from work and he saw Frances and a few of her friends out in our front yard pretending to dig with shovels.

He asked, "Are you planting a garden?"

Frances replied, "No, we're having a war."

Looking puzzled, Nigel queried, "A war? Is that how you're fighting?"

Frances matter of factly answered, "No. We finished the war. Now we're taking care of all the bodies."

What would Jared say?

After a fabulous juggling show at our local library (or "loco library" as Frances used to call it), we stopped by a sandwich shop (we'll call it "Schlubway") for a late dinner.

It was obvious that the girl working the counter was new because she took forever making our sandwiches and kept going to the back to ask "Shane" questions.

Since I don't go there very often, I asked her what came with the kid meals I just ordered (you know, besides the sandwich). She didn't know. Shane came out and said raisins and juice boxes. I was a little perplexed because the menu had pictures of chips or apples and milk. I asked about those options and he looked perturbed at me and said, 'Yeah, if there's any left' and disappeared again to the back.

OK.

I had the kids pick out some chips and they didn't want milk, but there was only one juice box in the fridge. I asked if there were any other drinks. The girl said that they could pick anything out of the fridge. They quickly picked out a soda and two apple juices in bottles. I again asked if these came with the kid meals. She assured me that they did.

She then rang up our order. All right, three kids meals at $4.19 each, one foot long at $5.00, my total was $27.95.

What the %&*$?!? I told her that couldn't possibly be right. She said that she rang it up just like Shane showed her. I said that there was no way that was correct.

She went again to the back to get Shane. She was explaining to him that I didn't like the total and that she had rung up the kids meals and then added the cost of the chips and drinks on top of them. I said, "What? Those are supposed to come with the kids meals. I specifically asked if they came with the kids meals."

Then Shane says to me quite curtly, "Don't get angry. You don't have to get mad."

I wasn't mad until he said that. I snapped at him, "What do you mean? I've just been overcharged by 10 bucks!"

He replies, "You haven't been overcharged anything. I haven't charged your credit card yet."

Oh, I'm sorry. My mistake. I guess it's OK to ring it up wrong. It's only bad if I complain about it and not let them overcharge me. My bad.

She rings it up again, correctly this time, and we're ready to leave when I realize she forgot the toys. Of course, my kids only eat food if there's a toy that comes along with it. Now I have to go back and ask for the toys. She throws some toys in the bags and apologizes for being new.

I get in the car and realize that instead of giving us the "iCarly" toys that they had advertised (which was the whole reason why my kids wanted to go there in the first place), she had given us toddler toys.

I give up. I didn't go back (and I probably won't be back).

I was going to complain on the Schlubway Web site, but I figured that Shane would just yell at the poor new girl working all alone in the store. So, I'll just complain on my blog.

There, I feel much better.

Energy Crisis Solved!

My 10-year-old daughter Frances plops down next to me and says:

"I'm thinking of inventing a fart-powered car. I'm calling it "The Real Natural Gas." I just hope that farts have power. I also haven't figured out how to harness the power of the farts. When you fart in the car, I can have something in the seats that takes them to the engine, but what about when you fart and you're not in the car? That's just a waste of energy. I think I'll have to invent some kind of fart-absorbing tampon."

Then she just gets up and goes out to play.

Adventures in Preparedness

Recently we bought Alice-Grace her own 72-hour emergency preparedness kit (she's in Kindergarten now, that's plenty big enough to lug around a 20-pound backpack in case of fire, flood or earthquake).

Of course, she was way excited and had to pull everything out of her pack. This made Frances and Jeffrey want to empty out their 72-hour kits. Which eventually led to them unloading mine and Nigel's emergency packs.

Now our already messy living room was even more cluttered with candles, MREs, matches, toilet paper, water packets, first aid kits, flashlights, hand warmers, light sticks, solar radios, etc.

The next morning I go to get something in the living room, trip over an empty backpack and fall on something. CRACK! Oh no, what emergency tool did I just crush?

AAAAAARRRRGHHHHH! IT BURNS! IT BURNS!

I quickly found it. I had broken open the ammonia capsule you use to wake up people who have fainted. Let's just say that those things really do work.

Maybe greed is just...greed

Gordon Gecko* was wrong.

All we hear about now is how the banks are failing, foreclosures are rampant, investment firms are belly-up, etc. It's gloom and doom as far as the eye can see.

Why? What does it all stem from? I'm putting my money on greed (pun intended).

I remember when Frances was a baby and I got the umpteenth phone call about some guy trying to get me to buy a cookie-cutter home in some horrible subdivision way out in the boonies. Tired of fending off these guys (all apartment renters must be on a list somewhere), I decided to go out there and PROVE that I couldn't afford it so that once and for all they would stop bugging me.

Well, they ran the figures and I COULD afford it! Maybe not that house, maybe not that subdivision, but maybe something, somewhere.

That got my little brain a moving. Before I knew it, I had a whole new group of friends--an army of mortgage brokers and Realtors--who were trying to help me get my own little piece of the American dream.

I soon learned that my new found "friends" wanted me to buy the biggest house possible, even though we ALL knew that I couldn't afford it.

"Smart people buy the most house for the most money"
"The bank is willing to lend you that amount, so you should take out a loan for the entire amount"
"You can get a much bigger house if you do an interest only loan"
"Adjustable rate mortgages are the way to go, interest rates will only go down and if they don't, just sell it and make a profit!"

I stuck to my guns and bought a modest little condo for well below what the bank was willing to loan me at a fixed interest rate.

My Realtor thought I was making a huge mistake (was he really for my best interest, or mad that he didn't make as much commission?) and my mortgage broker thought I was an idiot (because he cared for me or because he gets more money for selling the "creative" loans?). Did I make the wrong decision?

One year after we bought our condo as I returned to work after taking my maternity leave (with Jeffrey), I was laid off of my job. I knew that we could live off of one income and still easily pay our mortgage. I got another job and then a few years later Nigel was out of a job. Again, we didn't have to worry because I had planned for that while house hunting.

Sure, I WANT a huge house with a big yard and a garage, but I don't NEED it and more importantly, I can't afford it.

Now all of us Americans are paying for the greed of others.

Do I blame the homeowners for getting in too far over their heads? Were they too greedy? Possibly. But I also know how hard it is to stick to your principles when everyone is telling you to do something else and that you're dumb for not following their advice.

Do I blame the mortgage brokers and banks? Possibly. They certainly did know what they were doing.

I think I blame Gordon Gecko. Maybe greed doesn't work. Maybe greed isn't good. Maybe greed is just...greed. Maybe that's why it's one of the seven deadly sins.

*Character from the movie "Wall Street."

"WALL-E"

Back when we were doing our "Family Camp" staycation, someone surprised us by leaving on our porch a bag of goodies (soda pop, popcorn, candy) plus a gift card for a local movie theater.

We ate the goodies right away and saved the gift card for "WALL-E."

Jeffrey loved the movie (robots, space, trash -- all his favorite things). Frances liked it (bonus -- she actually did NOT throw up while in the theater). Alice-Grace was fine through the opening credits and then the craziness began (that girl can't sit still to save her life). Nigel liked the movie.

I thought it was OK, but just too darn LONG! Is that a bad sign that I can't even sit through a children's movie? I felt like a child again playing "Risk" with my brothers (where I would always be France so that I could get invaded quickly and stop playing that mind-numbing game).

We did have a great time, though, seeing a movie when it first came out in a nice cinema. Thank you, movie pass and candy fairy!

Please note that I haven't posted lately because I've been so busy at work. Here are my favorite closed-captioning mistakes that I've seen lately:

"John McCain" was typed as "John Muck Contain"

Angelina Jolie & Brad Pitt's daughter "Zahara" was typed as "The Horror"

Family Camp Day Seven: Pirate Day

Why couldn't the young pirate go to the movie? Because it was rated "arrrr"!

OK, bad joke. Like dinosaur day, pirate day kind of fizzled (maybe it's because we're burned out on family camp, maybe it's because real life started creeping in, I don't know).

We went to a local park (please note that we do go to a different park each time) and made pirate hats and paper boats. We then sailed the boats in a little stream. It was a good competition between Nigel's and Frances' boats. Poor Jeffrey, his boat kept getting stuck in the weeds (we said it was picking up passengers). Mine didn't win, but it did keep its shape the longest (my origami skills are awesome!). Alice-Grace didn't want to get hers wet.

After a picnic lunch, I had lots of games and activities planned (buried treasure in the sand volleyball court, see how many pretzels you can pick up with a hook-hand, pirate "Simon Says," etc.), but it all dissolved in a puddle of tears because Jeffrey kept falling down and he was convinced it was the park's fault (not his slippery shoes).

Once we got back home, everyone soon scattered and then we ended up in the pool. Pirates went swimming, didn't they? OK, maybe not of their own free will, but they did go swimming. Can we call that a "walk the plank" activity?

Then our day was eaten up by Frances going to her church group activity and Nigel heading off to scouts. I had to go to bed early because it was back to work for me the next morning.

We actually did our pirate craft the next day. Here are our rice crispy treat pirate sculptures. Frances did an island (check out the palm tree) with a cave full of gold coins. Jeffrey did a treasure chest full of gold coins and a pirate ship and a cannon. Alice-Grace copied Frances' island, but hers has barrette fish and a bridge.

(photos of rice crispy creations coming soon)

That's the end of our family camp. It was a lot of fun and the kids really got into it. They looked forward to the different themes and activities and although we didn't get to everything that I had planned, it was wonderful just to be together. I was amazed by all the FREE activities within our city and it was good for the kids to realize that you don't need to spend a ton of money to have a good time.

Family Camp Day Six: Science Day

I thought I'd start off our sixth day of "family camp" with a homemade breakfast. Well, I guess it's been a while since I've used my antique Manning Bowman waffle iron because when I turned it on, billows of smoke filled our kitchen. Instead of waking the kids up with the delicious aroma of waffles, I woke them up with the smoke alarm going off!

Well, it is science day, after all. I was glad to see that they all promptly got up and started crawling towards the front door to get outside (those fire drills must be working).

After breakfast (the waffles were yummy, by the way), we headed out to the local University campus to check out their science building. There were lots of hands-on exhibits and we all had a great time. We'll have to come back when the Planetarium is open.

Then we went to another science building to check out the fish tanks. Jeffrey was enamored with the lobster and Alice-Grace couldn't get enough of the sucker fish.

We had a nice picnic lunch on campus (where we accidentally threw away Alice-Grace's bracelets that she was keeping in her lunch sack for "safe keeping").

Then it was off to the college library. We saw an exhibit by one of our friends (if you want to be a great artist, be our neighbor -- so far in our travels we have been to museums where THREE of our past next door neighbors' artwork has been on display) and we loved checking out the huge globe. "Hey, look, it's Sri Lanka!"

(photo of us pointing to big globe coming soon)

Then we headed to the art museum (art can be a science, right?). This is where Alice-Grace remembered her lost bracelets. This induced much crying, which caused the security guards to circle around us giving us the stink-eye. I took Alice-Grace back to our lunch spot and after much trash digging, we found her bag with the treasured bracelets still inside (please note that her "bracelets" are actually hair rubber bands). We went back to the art museum and then, exhausted, headed home.

Back at home we did some science experiments on surface tension (you know, sprinkle pepper on water and then add a drop of dish soap to see them disperse) and then we brought out the Diet Coke and Mentos. We had never done this before, so it was totally exciting. It was especially fun because cousin Fred gave us a special rocket launcher just for this reason.

(photos of Diet Coke shooting into the air coming soon)

That night, we went to a local park to FINALLY do our campfire (you know, what we tried to do on day one of family camp but the weather was nasty). Nigel taught us how to build a proper fire and we roasted marshmallows. The kids loved it.

(photo of kids roasting marshmallows coming soon)

Then we did Alka-Seltzer rockets (put an Alka-Seltzer tablet and some vinegar in an empty film canister, put the lid on and watch it shoot into the air) until our container flew on top of the pavilion roof and did not roll off.

Luckily there was lots to do at the park. Frances loved playing "Robinson Crusoe" under a big pine tree. We then played at the playground and in the sand volleyball court before heading home.

Another great day of family camp! One more to go!