• Why not start things off with my column from two weeks ago, wherein I discuss the competition between me and my daughter.
• And then follow up with my nearly-stopped-wavering on the More Kids issue.  Because I think there is this spectrum, with Individual Attention for Each Kid at one end and My Alone Time/My Alone Time With My Husband at the other.  With each additional child something has to give.  You’re either going to take time away from one of your existing kids or you’re going to take time away from you and your spouse.  For our family, I think we’ve just about hit the right spot on the spectrum.
• I never dug her bits about beauty creams or fashion at the end of each Lucky issue, but I really like her bits now in blog form.  Makes no sense to me, either.  Anyway, one of my new favorite blogs.
• Bet you didn’t think of all these as you raise your kids.  Especially #3, to which my husband is a testament.  That boy is not oogied out by germs.  One time he told me that as a kid when his grandparents would make him wash up for dinner he’d think, Why?  Because, as his youngest brother pointed out on a different occasion, he’s pretty sure he rolled down hills of cow-poo as a kid and had the best time.  Hubby’s grandparents knew their farm held germs, and said germs should be washed away before dinner.  But Hubby didn’t adhere to that kind of pesky germs-cause-problems hoolabaloo.  AND my husband never gets sick.  Which is only a bit of hyperbole.  Because really, he does not get the flu or colds.  Maybe he’s sick once every couple of years?  Anyway, long paragraph to say that #3 in the above-linked Cracked column rings true with my husband.
• Finally, read this.  Then put away your computer/iPad/iPhone and take Heidi’s challenge to write some handwritten notes.

My freshman year of high school we had a geography teacher who was frighteningly green in her job–it was her first year teaching, and not only was she young but she LOOKED young.  She could have easily passed for one of her students.  She knew this was a handicap going in so she compensated by never smiling and being a bit hostile in her teaching method.  Her plan backfired because not only did we not like her but we didn’t respect her too much, either.

One day they were having a discussion about the CIA when she called on a kid and asked him what was so important that he had to talk while she was giving her lecture?  He said, “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”  In our freshman eyes it was a totally hilarious and appropriate response because it showed that he had indeed been listening to her yammer on.

This was also one of the boys who during our Gifted Block (a two-hour block of time that a group of us stayed in one class for our social studies and English) would get desperately bored after our teacher left the room for another 30-minute chunk of time and sneak over to the 7th Grade Gifted Block’s room, move the mannequin into the teacher’s chair and drew pubic hair on it.

Give boys ample time to be naughty and they will exceed your expectations.

So freshman year, when that guy sassed off to the teacher, I’m pretty sure he got suspended, but he most certainly did not get expelled.  Those were pre-Columbine days.

I keep thinking about the kid who wrote the first threat on the bathroom wall at the middle school, and if the rumor is true–if he indeed is a good kid who only wrote the message as part of a dare–then I wonder if he is like those boys I went to middle and high school with: incredibly smart but desperately bored, looking for the best way to cause a huge commotion, yet are no real risk to the safety of the school.  And we all know that boys’ reasoning skills do not arrive until their mid-twenties.  I have a husband and a son and a father that are each adored by me, but we all know that boys are dufuses for most of their early years.

In no way am I excusing the madness that has gone on over these past few days.  I believe that each of the children who wrote the threats should be expelled.  I just keep wondering if that first kid especially is bright and funny and full of bad decisions.  I hope they each learn their lesson.

As to the debacle of how it was handled, I emailed the superintendent yesterday, received a response an hour or two later, and then got a phone call from him an hour after that.  I appreciated him taking the time to talk to me even though I have no children in the middle school.  I think they all understand how fully they fumbled the situation and I can only assume they will do much better next time, but I’m surprised at how perfectly they messed up.  Columbine happened 14 years ago.  Shouldn’t they have had a solid action plan in place 13 years and eleven months ago?  I know they have an action plan on when to call the police, I read the Gazette’s article on what happened, but shouldn’t they also have an action plan on how to notify the parents?

I hope the school board lays down the law tonight and dissuades any other children from pulling this same prank in the future.  I also am praying for those kids, that these acts were indeed just pranks and not cries for help.

“The truth seems to be, however, that when he casts his leaves forth upon the wind, the author addresses, not the many who will fling aside his volume, or never take it up, but the few who will understand him better than most of his schoolmates or lifemates.”

-Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter

• Nevertheless?  Proper grammar confuses me.
• We were at my in-laws’ house, then my parents’, now we’re home and there’s Christmas stuff everywhere but I’m pretty done with Christmas.  I want all the decorations to be gone.  Taking down all the ornaments and putting them in their boxes with two semi-helpful grade-schoolers and one very unhelpful toddler overwhelms me.  Maybe this afternoon I’ll  tackle it while a certain baby sleeps.
• Last night my husband asked if I’d like x amount of money for my birthday to blow on whatever I’d like.  My first thought was, What will the kids buy me? Because I love seeing what they come up with.  Then I thought, I do not need enough stuff to come anywhere near that amount of money.  But as I laid in bed last night I thought of new everyday dishes and cups that would be nice to replace my stained ones, then how my gray cardigan that I throw on three times a week is wearing out and missing a button, and I thought of sprucing up my living room, and suddenly that amount of money Hubby offered is nowhere near enough.  Greed rears its ugly head.
• While in Tulsa with my parents I snuck away one night to spend some time with my friend Heidi.  I sat in her pretty living room and drank peppermint tea and caught up with a precious friend.  There are few people with whom you can indulge the small talk only for a bit before getting to the banter reserved for dear friends.  Heidi is one of those people.  My friend Amy in Kansas City is the same way.  Last summer we ate dinner at Granite City and in no time she was making me giggle with her stories just like when we were in college.  And Gina in Kansas City (maybe you remember I kind of started the blog for those two?) has these eyes that make you believe you can tell her anything.  And then of course I spill my guts.  I never see either any of those three, but when I do it’s right back to me oversharing and leaving their company with a full heart.
• I want a date night with my husband.
• Hooray for beautiful weather on Christmas break!  Maybe I’ll be able to take a precious picture of my children and send out some New Year’s cards.  Maybe.

Daphne and I went to the mall today so that I could buy some blush for myself and glasses for Mia.  I can only tell you that because Mia does not yet read this blog, although she very well could be by next semester.  Last night she read “The Moon in My Room” and a level 1 reader “Bolt.”  The night before she read “Morris the Moose,” then this morning over breakfast she read a couple pages from “Wow Wow Wubbzy.”  She loves reading, that girl.  Takes after her father and a younger version of her mother.

Back to the mall.  I find it very interesting that teenagers love the smell that rushes out the door and up into your brain from Abercrombie & Fitch and Hollister.  They must, because Victoria’s Secret is now doing the same thing.  You can’t walk by those stores without smelling like cologne that is all at once overpriced and repulsive to anyone over 19.  My sister Hayley and her husband Todd walked by Abercrombie once and witnessed a sales associate spraying cologne on each and every shirt in a pile.  When you walk by the store you initially think they must do that because of the way the smell permeates every molecule of air within a 20 foot radius outside the door, but then logic says, “No, surely not,” because WASTEFUL, and don’t the children who work there need their olfactory nerves after they move on?  And what about the parents of the children who work there?  I’m guessing they make their kids strip down and shower outside before coming in the house after a shift.

It’s exactly the opposite of the wasp-noise that that store in England discovered.  I can’t find it via Google, but some store owner in England found out that teenagers could hear a buzzing wasp noise that adults’ ears could not hear, so the shop owner played the noise to keep teenagers away.  I was skeptical until the minister at our church in Tulsa played a noise and asked if anyone could hear it.  For a split second I thought it was a joke along the lines of “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” but immediately the entire youth group raised their hands, without thinking.  I was only in my mid-twenties at the time, but it was right then I knew I was old.  My ears had already begun giving up.

So apparently teenagers don’t like annoying sounds but are down with pungent odors.  I’m thinking this information might come in useful in the future, I’m just not sure how.

Hubby is out with his friends, “out” meaning hanging at our friends’ house (sans wives, of course) to watch a new 3-D TV.  The boys get together at night, without spouses or children, and the girls get together during the day, without husbands but WITH children.  And when the boys go out at night without the kids, we still have the kids.  I’m not complaining because the husbands are good about letting us girls go out together at night, but we never do.  The last time was maybe February or March?  So basically never.  Again, I’m not stomping my foot and pouting “That’s not fair,” just saying maybe us girls should change it up sometimes. [edit: Of course, they are at Mr. Y's house while his kids are upstairs, but I'm betting MRS. Y is the one taking care of the kiddos as they wake up and need a drink of water.]

So I made chocolate mug cake, topped it with ice cream and walnuts, and watched “Harold and Maude.”  Now, that movie has been on our Netflix queue for quite a while, probably even before I went out with my girlfriends sans children (Which, now that I think about it, has been well over a year.  One of us keeps having a nursing baby that we have to bring along.), but I’ve never watched it.  I’ve always been too worried about the creepy factor.  Just how far would they push the romance of a young (college age?) boy and a 79-year-old woman?  There were some creepy parts, but I think for the most part it was a sweet movie.  In case you ever decide to watch it, let me know, and I’ll warn you about the parts you should skip through.

Now I’m googling pictures of Alexa Chung because I want to copy her wavy messy hair.  If you look at my most-used board on Pinterest you’ll see lots and lots of bobs, as in haircuts.  Bob haircuts.  And they all look pretty much the same.  I just want my haircut to not look like the hair of a 30-year-old mom who gave up, you know?  So I’ve been staring at people’s hair and trying to decide how to make mine match theirs.  Once, after our weekly date at the bakery (with kids, of course), I came home and cut swoopy bangs to look like Chrissa’s.  But my hair still doesn’t look like hers.  Hers is shinier and try as I might, I cannot get my double-processed, bleached hair to shine like hers.  I’d like to do the blunt bangs of Ellen Barkin or Scarlett Johansson or Katie Holmes, but that’s scary.  Jayme cut them on her long hair and I can’t wait to see them.  Anyway, Alexa Chung has blunt bangs, so I’ve been looking at the pictures that some people creepier than me have put on their blogs that are totally devoted to her.

Every time I hear Arcade Fire’s “Wake Up” I think of Estella from Great Expectations and I’m sad for her.  Then I want to read more Dickens.  Have you guys read Great Expectations yet?  Do.  It is such a wonderful book.  If you’re not laughing out loud in the first chapter then put it down, get yourself a cup of coffee and a clear head, then sit down and try it again.  If you’re still not laughing out loud in the first chapter then you’re reading it wrong.  That’s okay, because I did the first time, too.  But Dickens is so incredible at making you laugh while feeling the fear of a six-year-old boy all at once.  Then you grow up with Pip and love him and you love Joe and that whole world and then, 496 pages later it’s suddenly finished and you have to find another book that will be as satisfying to spend your time on.  Probably I should try Oliver Twist or A Christmas Carol but I fear it’s too late in the Christmas season for the latter and I don’t want to be sad with the previous.

Speaking of Joe Gargery, let’s name some of our favorite characters from literature.  Off the top of my head: Joe Gargery from Great Expectations, John Jarndyce from Bleak House (I’ve never read the book but did see the BBC Miniseries with the adorable Carey Mulligan, and I love John Jarndyce)(also, Bleak House is another Dickens novel, so of course I’d love it if I read it), and John Ames from Gilead.  Now, my favorites are stacked with characters from books I’ve just read, but I think it goes along with the fact that I refuse to read anything that’s not encouraging.  I want to have the love and forgiveness these characters have.  Also, I love the narrator in Sonny’s Blues.  Not that he’s as altruistic as the others, but that short story has been one of my favorites since I discovered short stories, so I should probably name him as a favorite character in literature.

Who is your favorite person from the Bible?  You are not allowed to say Jesus.  Mine is Peter because that man was a mess.  He was impulsive and lost his faith as quickly as he got it, spoke out of turn and was heartily reprimanded but still stayed close to Jesus, denied his Lord three times during his precious friend’s greatest need, and yet Jesus built His church upon him.  Through all his weakness he loved Jesus.  Really, really, really loved Him.  I can get behind that.  Paul is too sure of himself; that is nothing like me.  I think if we hung out he would look at me sideways and call me out on my stuff.  Daniel would be interesting.  He was a smarty and I admire his resolve.

[Another edit, for you guys who are up at 11:08 on a Saturday night and reading my blog as quickly as it posts: that guy from Cracked appears to have been totally right about the next Batman.  Behold.]

Okay, I’m going to wrap it up now.  I’m going to re-read Sonny’s Blues and continue listening to the “erin’s faves” playlist on our iTunes.  You guys have a good night.

My sister loaned me a handful of books late last Spring and I’m finally getting around to reading the second one of the lot, Gilead.  There doesn’t seem to be much of a plot yet and so it takes me a lot of effort to stay interested.  But I do love it.  It’s quiet and meandering and has some golden nuggets of prose.  This one made me laugh out loud:

But I’ve developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.  This is not a new insight, but the truth of it is something you have to experience to fully grasp.

And this one, where the protagonist talks about baptizing a litter of cats as a child:

Two or three of that litter were taken home by the girls and made into fairly respectable house cats.  Louisa took a yellow one.  She still had it when we were married.  The others lived out their feral lives, indistinguishable from their kind, whether pagan or Christian no one could ever tell.  She called her cat Sparkle, for the white patch on its forehead…One of the boys said she should have named it Sprinkle.  He was a Baptist, a firm believer in total immersion, which those cats should have been grateful I was not.

]]> http://erinslittlecorner.com/2011/11/03/quotes/feed/ 1 http://erinslittlecorner.com/2011/10/30/the-pitfalls-of-trendy/ http://erinslittlecorner.com/2011/10/30/the-pitfalls-of-trendy/#comments Sun, 30 Oct 2011 18:29:06 +0000 Erin http://erinslittlecorner.com/?p=1954

We went to the K-State game yesterday and some of those college girls dressed so cute.  But I feel like a lot of them could benefit from the following chart before next leaving their dorm room/sorority house/apartment:

(found at i-am-bored.com)

Thanks to my husband and Cracked.com (sorry for their potty language but it’s a fun read) for the following video.

Things to remember while watching:

• The calf survives.
• Look for the first lion who runs away and the second lion that gets thrown into the air.
• “Always bet on the water buffalo.” -Hubby

On unabashedly wearing a cute sequined top you found at the thrift store:

Yet it’s one step to buy the sequins and it’s another leap to actually wear them. I used to be afraid of the sparkle, worried about what people would say about me behind my back until I just got over it. Meh. Some people wear Sponge Bob Square Pants pajama bottoms to sign their mortgage papers, and I wear sequins to go for a walk. There is room for all kinds of fashion choices on this earth. Isn’t that nice? My heart is warmed.

-from a Canadian girl I don’t know (but love to read), at this post.