Carly vs. the Smoke Detectors pt. 1

According to my handy new blogger interface, this will be my 200th post on this blog! Also, according to my new interface I am a slacker. No, it didn't say that exactly, but the fact that I had no idea blogger had totally changed it's look made that perfectly clear to me.
Sorry about that. I've been doing more Facebook updates with the crazy stuff Sam (and now Peyton!) say, which is easy, because it forces me to keep it short. Not something I'm good at.

Anyway, since this blog is called "It's My First Day!" and I'm still pulling stupid rookie stunts 200 posts later, it seems only appropriate to start sharing my most embarrassing "rookie" mistake to date, and of course, it starts on a major holiday.

This year on Christmas morning, we were having my mother-in-law over for breakfast and then rushing off to church. As a sidenote, I'm pretty sure Mormons are one of the only religions that celebrate Christmas, yet don't go to church on it--and in the event that Christmas falls on a Sunday, as it did this past year, we shorten our services. It's kind of funny if you think about it, but we are big on family, and spending as much time with them as possible on holidays. I like it that way, but I can see why other religions think it's weird.
But this post isn't about church on Christmas. This is about my crazy Christmas morning. First of all, since I was cooking a souffle my aunt has made ever year that I can remember and it seems morally repugnant NOT to have it, I had to get up extra early to put it in the oven. You have to put it together the night before and the next morning it cooks for 90 minutes. So I was up well before the kids on Christmas morning. If it wasn't for church, it would have been a brunch and I would have been make-up free and in PJs all morning, but instead, I got up super early, put in breakfast and was showered and ready before the kids even surfaced. Soon Sam bounced up, and while Peyton would have rather slept in, Sam was about to explode so we woke him up and the kids got to go see what wonderful things Santa had left behind.
As expected, getting Sam's presents out of the box was a colossal pain in the butt (why, oh why, oh WHY, do they have to sew doll's hair into the cardboard, and on a related whine, why does Rapunzel have to have so much hair!?) Anyway, the morning was going as expected. Daniel and I were using knives, scissors and various weapons trying to free the new toys from their packaging without swearing, and when we finally got things out, Peyton would rather play with the boxes we just worked so hard to dismantle. You know, pretty basic Christmas morning stuff. We let the kids goof off, we opened gifts, I got dressed in my church clothes. It was a good morning.
Finally, it was time to get the souffle out and put the cinnamon rolls in the oven. Which I did, although I noticed one drop of the souffle bubbled over and hit the bottom of the oven.
Generally, that is not really that big a deal. The one drop burns and it smells a little gross, but then it's all burned up and you and your appliances go about your life and eventually you buy some easy-off to clean the black spot on the bottom of the oven that you vaguely remember was dinner three weeks ago. Right?
Not on this Christmas morning.
The smoke detector went off.  I went to do what I had seen my visiting grandfather do every single time my grandmother cooked at our house growing up, and used a dishrag to wave the smoke away from the detector so it would calm down.
Not gonna happen. Apparently in new houses, all the smoke detectors are wired together, and within seconds all the detectors in the house were wailing like crazy. Sam kept freaking out about a fire, and Peyton didn't care for all the noise. I couldn't get the "smoke"--which we couldn't see or smell any of--away from the kitchen detector, and they would not stop. Plus, it was still really early, and I was really afraid of waking up any of our neighbors for whom sleeping in was their Christmas gift.
Finally, Daniel decided to try turning off the breaker to see if once they were quiet, they would stay off.
Which would have worked, in theory. Except that smoke detectors have back up batteries.
So not only did Daniel have to turn off the power to the house, he had to get a ladder, and one by one take the batteries out of the detectors. At this point, they would let out a sad little shriek and finally die. Turns out, we have a lot of smoke detectors.
It also turns out that when you turn off the power to the house a couple of things happen--1) It goes dark, 2) all the electric clocks die, and 3) the oven (containing your Christmas cinnamon rolls, remember?) dies too.
It was obvious we couldn't turn off the power and keep it that way. Hoping that stopping the noise, and not being able to see or smell any smoke would be enough to keep the smoke alarms from starting up again, we turned the breaker back on.
We made it about 5 more minutes--just enough time to reset all my clocks FYI--before the horrific chorus started up again.  We figured that even though it was a minuscule drop that had burned, and there was no evidence at all of there being smoke in the house, our detectors must be really sensitive. I had opened the oven to check on the very confused cinnamon rolls to see if they were salvageable right before they started up again, so there must still be smoke somewhere!
We did what anyone needing to air out their house in a hurry would do. We turned off the breaker again to get rid of the noise, and then we opened our windows.
Soon, we were all freezing. We tried to turn the breaker back on three more times, only to have the chorus of alarms start up again. Our house was so cold, not only was the heat off because of the lack of electricity, but all the windows were wide open.  The whole family was bundled up, but that couldn't last. My mother in law gets cold easily, and in general I don't really consider it good Christmas hospitality to not only freeze your guests out, but serve them mostly raw cinnamon rolls while they listen to loud sirens wailing throughout their meal. Call me old-fashioned.
I was totally panicked. I had reached the point where I could no longer do a single thing to get ready for breakfast without electricity. I'd even had to go into our food storage to get water bottles because, guess what? The ice maker and water dispenser in the fridge requires electricity.
At this point, a random thought entered my head that I would not enjoy being Amish. Then again, I wouldn't have had the smoke detector issue in the first place since technically, it was technology that had caused this whole mess. I spent the next few minutes internally debating whether being Amish would have made this whole event worse or better. I didn't come up with an answer, but I think my thoughtful staring freaked Daniel out a little.

We couldn't think of who to call for help, it being Christmas morning and all. There wasn't an actual fire, obviously, so it seemed like a jerk move to all the fire department on Christmas morning. Calling any of our friends away from their families seemed equally bad. Google was little help in the few minutes we could try using it between breaker shutdowns. We were stuck. We were worried that even if we could stop them, we would leave for church and they would start up again, making our neighbors angry. It was hard not to laugh, the whole thing was so ridiculous.

Finally, minutes before Daniel's mom was supposed to arrive, we tried one more time to turn on the breaker and heard blessed silence. We cautiously went about our preparations, turned up the heat and found some slippers and jackets to offer our guest. No more alarms sounded.

We got through breakfast okay (despite cinnamon rolls that were burned on the bottom and slightly raw on top), and while I was tensely waiting for the sirens to start again, they didn't.
Daniel stayed home with a runny-nosed Peyton to stand guard over the house, and Sam and I went to church, but they remained quiet.

Finally, we figured that we must never so much as overcook toast again, but at least the Smoke Detector Saga of Christmas 2011 seemed to be over.

I had no way of knowing it was just beginning.

Sam and Sir. Elton

Today, I dropped something off at a friend's house and Sam and her brother waited for me in the car. I left the radio on and when I came back, Sam announced "Mom! My favorite song from Gnomeo and Juliet came on while you were gone!"
I told her I was happy for her and asked what song it was. She didn't know what it was called, but "It's totally my favorite song!"
Okay, well, all the songs from Gnomeo and Juliet are Elton John songs, so I started fishing around a little--she just told me a few days ago that she also loves "Bennie and the Jets" so this kid is clearly a fan of Sir Elton. I am too, so I think that's kind of adorable.
"Sam, does it go 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart?'" I sang?
"Yes." Well then problem solved. "Oh, wait, Mom. No. No it doesn't."
Hmmmm....was it the new one "Hello, Hello?" I sang a little more. Not well. I'm no singer.
"Nope."
I pretty much gave up on trying to sleuth the song she was talking about until she mentioned it again a few hours later. Plus, I'm really stubborn and it was going to bug me.
I asked her to sing it for me, and she told me she couldn't. She was trying to think of a way to help me though. "But mom...it's about 'if I was a scorcher.'"
Carefully, I repeated "If I was a scorcher?"
"Yeah."
"A scorcher? What's a scorcher?"
Sam looked at me and said "I have no idea."
I thought about that for a few minutes while Sam and Peyton had a snack and then suddenly I yelled excitedly "If I was a SCULPTOR!!?? Sam? Could it be sculptor?"
Sam smiled and said "YES!"
I tried a few more of the lyrics to see if they rang a bell and Sam was saying "Yes, yes!! That's my favorite song! The one from Gnomeo and Juliet!"
Oh. "Your Song." It's one of my all time favorite songs too.
Carry on with your day, citizens. That's exactly what we did.

I am so glad I figured it out though. I also think it's funny that Sam is an Elton John fan. I mean, she's three, and first "Bennie and the Jets" and now "Your Song" added to her "favorites" list in less than a week.  Still, it's way less weird than that intense little obsession she had with Neil Diamond when she was two. In all seriousness, she loved him and only wanted to listen to "Sweet Caroline" for a month or two. At least I also like Elton John. Makes this phase much easier to handle should it continue.

Rock-afire Implosion

So, Netflix suggested I watch a documentary called "The Rockafire Explosion." (Netflix also thinks I'm really weird, but that's a whole different post.) It popped up because I watched and loved "Being Elmo" so I figured they must be pretty similar.
Anyway, my first thought upon seeing it listed was "No way! The Rockafire Explosion, there's some way back memories. Sweet." I do remember the Rockafire Explosion, and Showbiz pizza. I even had my 3rd or 4th birthday party there. Here comes a good little dose of 80's nostalgia, right? Wrong.
The whole documentary is about people who really love the Rockafire Explosion. Really really love it. Like this was more a prolonged episode of TLCs "My Strange Addiction" than a documentary about an audiomatronic 80's band for kids. There were creepy tattoos. There were a lot of people who basically felt that nothing good had happened in their lives since the 80's and they just wanted their Showbiz pizza back. The main story was about a guy who saved up his money from his job as a roller skating rink DJ  (yes, they still have those, and talk about living in the past!) to buy and put an entire re-created show of the original robots in his basement. This was in 2008. Yep. He saved up thousands of dollars to buy a set of robots that hadn't been opened since 1983 and dedicate a home to them. He programs them to sing more current songs, which is kind of awesome on YouTube until you realize that he's not some bored millionaire with money and time to burn--he's put his whole life into this.
I was watching in amazement, unable to look away, when Sam came down and asked what the animals were. I explained that they were what we had as a kid, before Chuck E. Cheese came along and replaced them (I didn't get far enough into the show to see how the people felt about Chuck E. Cheese, but I get the distinct impression they're out for his blood, or motor oil, or whatever.)

After a few minutes of watching the performances with me, Sam says "So, uh, was it supposed to be scary when you were a kid?"
Me: "No, it was supposed to be fun, like Chuck E. Cheese is for you." Apparently the 80's technology doesn't translate, and a friendly mouse is a lot less scary than a full size gorilla, wolf with a creepy puppet, or giant bear.
Sam: "Are you sure? Because this is kind of scary." Seriously--this from a kid who watches the old 1990's Disneyland sing-along-song with the Country Bears without so much as flinching. Her favorite song is "Grim Grinning Ghosts" with the Witch from Snow White, and the Rockafire Explosion was creeping her out.
Me: "I know, Sam. I know." And it was scary, on many levels.  Not the least of which is that I found it in the Netflix category "Popular with people like you" so I spent the whole hour I watched thinking "Holy Crap! These are my people? What does that mean? What do you mean by THAT, NETFLIX?" Not a good feeling.
I've learned that some memories are most definitely better left in the past.  Way in the past, looking through that beautiful haze of nostalgia.
Also, if Sam ever got a tattoo of Yo Gabba Gabba in 20 years, it would kill me. I might keep this documentary in my back pocket as a cautionary tale for the teen years.

The Girl Scout Bond

As we headed into Wal-mart today, the girl scouts were lying in wait.

It was going to be a tough one.  I had the kids solo today so Daniel could work a full shift. I had to wake them up to take Sam to soccer, which was a lot more like water polo in a swamp than soccer. Sam managed to soak not only her cleats, but her socks and toes (in the 50 degree weather), and get her butt wet, since it was picture day and she ended up sitting in the soaking grass in the first row. Then Peyton decided to chime in on the fun by throwing up on himself. He still does that just a little bit after almost every meal, even though he is now officially one. He eats real food and drinks real milk, so I refuse to call this spit up, and am on the verge of slapping people who correct me when he does it in front of them. If I call it barf, they say "No, it's just a little spit up--he's a baby!" Augh!!! He's not a baby, he's one, and he has the diet of a toddler--and why don't you come over here and take a sniff or clean it up if it's just a little spit up?! One day I'm going to say that, and my guess is, there will be no volunteers. Which is a shame, because the smell of barf makes me gag, and I'd really rather not be the one handling it all the time.
Back on topic, since Peyton's clothes and our car now smelled to high heaven, and Sam had no back up shoes to replace her cleats (my bad!), even though we needed to go to the Wal-mart right next to the soccer field, I had to take them home to get changed first and then go back. I had promised Sam I would get the traditional after-soccer Jamba Juice once she was changed, which I did manage to do, considering it was now almost 11 and I hadn't had breakfast anyway. Carrying the Jamba Juice with Peyton, the diaper bag, and Sam alongside screaming that if she couldn't hold my hand she would get hit by a car and die, proved harder than I had thought it would be. It also made me re-evaluate my very rigid and possibly borderline crazy teaching of Sam to hold hands in parking lots. It's possible I inadvertently exaggerated the consequences. Still, I wasn't going to leave my Jamba in the car to melt while I went to Wal-mart!
This was my third (count 'em, three!) attempt to pick up a prescription that had been not ready twice already through the week for various flimsy reasons, so I was already cranky that I had to come back to this same location AGAIN, when it's not the closest to my house (it is closest to preschool, and silly me, I thought it would be done on preschool day, or the second preschool day of the week)!
 I was halfway across the parking lot when a car nowhere near us started to back up and Sam freaked out that they would hit her because she wasn't holding hands. I shifted the hand the Jamba juice was in to get her attention and calm her down really quickly, and that was all it took. I was trying to watch both kids and failing when Peyton grabbed the straw out of the smoothie and promptly flung it and it's contents all over both of us, the parking lot, and possibly the car we were next to (I was too scared to look). You can lick smoothie off your hands, but that doesn't help with the stickiness.  The wipes were no where reachable with my lack of hands, and Sam was sure she was dodging death every second and kept telling me to "get out of the road!"
I think the girl scouts saw us coming, sticky, stressed, and overloaded, and thought I was the easiest target they'd have all day. Normally, they'd be right, but today, I was feeling strong. Also weak. I could not, under any circumstances, let those cookies into the house today. I've been working so hard on not eating emotionally. I said "No thanks!" and wrestled Peyton into a cart. (Adding to the theme of the day, it would prove to be the ridiculous loudly squeaking cart).
As we walked into the store, Sam said "Did they say 'cookies?'"
Me: "Yes, Sam."
Sam: "But...we're not buying any."
Me: "That's right."
Sam: "Are they gross cookies?"
Me: "No. (sigh) They're fabulous."
Sam: "Why aren't we buying any?"
Me: "Because Mommy can't handle cookies in the house right now."
Sam: "I can. I can handle it!"
Me: "Sam, no you can't. You think you can, but then...well, you get a bite of thin mints and...well, it just changes you and the whole sleeve is gone. Trust me."
Sam: "Oh."

I thought that "oh" meant she got me. I thought we made a connection. I thought we were bonding over our shared helplessness around sugar.

Then in the car on the way home, Sam said,
"So, WHY can't we buy those girls' cookies?"

Me: "Because I said no!"

We'll bond later.

Obedience and Apologies

We're working on the obedience thing at our house. Always.
Last week, Sam had a particularly bad day and had pretty much moved into time out on a permanent basis. I was thinking of having a toilet installed next to the naughty step.
The next morning, Sam was being goofy and silly, and even weirder than usual--and starting all over again with the disobeying and poking of her little brother. I wouldn't mind so much if he was in a position to escape, but she waits until he's in his highchair and buckled in place to turn evil. As she was shaking her head with a open mouth full of breakfast and trying to tickle his feet while he squealed his discontent, I sighed and said "Sam, don't you remember what we learned yesterday about disobeying?"

She swallowed, smiled, put on her ridiculous "funny voice," and sang as loud as she could. "Yeeeeaaaah! It doesn't work out foooooor ME!!!!!!"

So. Um. Yeah. It doesn't. So, you know, knock it off. How can the parenting books expect me to keep a straight face and give a serious answer in the face of that response? She nailed it, in the most obnoxious and bizarre way possible. Story of Sam's life. I can't help but laugh sometimes.

A few days later, Sam decided to get a little creative. Lately, we've been keeping the TV off pretty much all the time and I've been expecting her to play on her own more often and she's been coming up with adorable new ways to play with her toys. I usually love it. This time, however, I wasn't a fan of her new game. She called it "Bowling for Buddy." From what I saw, "Bowling for buddy" consists of wheedling her newly minted walker of a brother to stand up and come towards her. She does this by saying "Come walk to me, buddy, stand up, you can do it!" and other things exactly like Daniel and I say when trying to get Peyton to walk instead of crawl. When he proudly did stand up and start his precarious toddle, Sam would take a can of Playdough and roll it, aiming at his feet and hoping to take Peyton out. Thus, "Bowling for Buddy." On the tile.

I wasn't a fan and put an immediate stop to the the game. Then I sent Sam to time out because she's been warned several times about intentionally knocking her brother over, especially on the tile floor. (Another favorite of hers is "tickle time" when she comes up behind him and yanks him down on the floor on top of her for tickling purposes. Peyton dislikes occasionally hitting his head on the floor. Oh, and he also very much dislikes her version of tickling.)
After Sam had been in time out a while I let her out with the direction to apologize to her little brother.
She walked up to him and said "I'm sorry Peyton. I didn't mean to frighten you prematurely. Muah ha ha!"

Sigh.
Sometimes, in motherhood, you can only hope for the letter of the law, because the spirit gets totally lost. In other news, Sam was thrilled to have found a practical application for a line she picked up watching You tube videos of The Haunted Mansion, so it was win-win for her at least.

Good Guys and Bad Guys

Today, Sam wanted to go out on the trampoline, so it was only a matter of time before she wanted her brother out there with her. He loves to bounce up and down when she jumps on the other side ("only little jumps with little bro!" as she yells to me), but mostly, he crawls after her while she runs away from him and they both crack up and get static-y stinky hair. Sam's curly mullet looks koo-koo-ca-choo after a while on the tramp!
So, I put him on there today, and she immediately started running from him, but she also started yelling:
"Oh no!!! It's the Squirm! Everyone, everyone, run and hide from THE SQUIRM! The Squirm will get you and eat you!"

Hilarious. As villain names go, "The Squirm" may not be the best name ever, but it's far from the worst, and is certainly appropriate for Peyton. Later, I noticed he had morphed into a run of the mill scorpion. I asked Sam what had happened to "The Squirm."
She just looked up at me, Einstein hair explosion swaying in the breeze, and said "Eh. Now he's a scorpion. That's the game."

I guess that means "The Squirm" was just a guest star in Sam's playtime. Too bad.

Nutrition and You

I recently saw a commercial for Lucky Charms that touted that now, whole grains are the first ingredient (in these as well as other pretty much otherwise unhealthy kids cereals), meaning they have more whole grain than anything other ingredient in them!
That's super, but it doesn't really give me the information I need to make an informed decision as a mom. What I want to know is, how much whole grain is a kid eating if she eats pretty much only the marshmallows (and occasional accidental "other piece") and then oh so magnanimously slips those oat parts to her baby brother when she thinks her mom isn't looking, so that both the marshmallow and non-marshmallows get evenly depleted and she doesn't lose her privilege to buy Lucky Charms next time? My guess is, not much.
But, you know, it's just a hypothetical, of course. I wouldn't know too much about that in execution.**
I only feed my kids very expensive local, organic, unwashed on the farm but extra washed at home produce, and local, free range, massaged by an equally organic geisha meat-producing animals, that have only been fed corn (or not been fed any corn, I forget which answer is the right one, but whichever is right, that's what I'm doing). Yep, that's me, the queen of the healthy food movement.
Or I will be, when Hostess tries to save itself from bankruptcy and somehow fulfills their promise to make ding dongs "a healthier option." Yesiree bob, that will be a happy day at our house. I'm thinking of slapping some yellow dye #5 into a mix of butter, sugar, and shortening, and slapping it on a boxed mix cupcake in celebration. Woohoo for health!


**No, lightning didn't zap me. Why it didn't, however, I am unsure--probably because even the big guy knows how I drip with sarcasm nearly constantly.