Tag-Archive for » kids «

April

I always intend to blog five days a week, Monday through Friday. But it never happens. I usually squeak in three or four posts, but that’s about it. Fridays, in particular, have alluded me. Today, however, I have a few extra minutes, so I sat down at the computer but found myself stumped as to subject matter. So, I started browsing our vast on-line library of pictures…

On the rare occasion that I actually blog on a Friday, I usually like to post something for my “Flashback Friday” feature where I delve into my legwarmered, teal eyeshadowed, BonJovied past and write about something ridiculously old-school. I have something I could post about today that is extremely timely and interesting and bittersweet that would definitely count as a flashback, but I can’t post about it. And I can’t tell you why. I probably won’t be able to post about it for at least five years. Don’t ask…I can’t tell. Yet.

Soooooooooooooo…I’m going to post a little vignette about my three children eating breakfast. Yes, eating. Yes, breakfast. Because these are the photos that inspired me today as I browse Big D’s site.

Big D took this series of photos in February when we were visiting his parents. I don’t know why he took them, but I’m glad he did. Big D and I have very different photo-taking approaches. Usually, I use my point-and-shoot to try to record bits of our history. I take pictures during holidays. I take pictures at events. I take pictures so that we will remember.

Big D takes pictures of emotions. He captures feelings. He records personality. It is art. I love that we have both kinds of pictures of our family. Someday my kids can look back and remember what we did and where we went and what they achieved. But they’ll also be able to look at these photos and know who they were.

They are just eating cereal, for crying out loud. But one can look at these photos and know something about each of them. We don’t just know that we went to Ma and Pa’s house and ate their cereal. We know a little bit about them. We see a little of their souls. Some how, some way Big D clicked and captured a moment and captured their characters at the same time.

I love photography.

I love my kids.

I love my husband.

Happy Friday to you all…

Category: Admiral Big D, Bonny Annie, Cap'n Jack Henry, Dirty Harry, My Crew Tags: breakfast, cereal, character, grandparents, kids, photography 5 Comments

An Odd Tale

December

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Once upon a time, there lived three children who were very odd.

They did odd things, ate odd foods, played odd games and often wore odd clothes.

No one is really quite sure why they were so odd. Genetics? Atmosphere? The fact that they are homeschooled? Global warming? It is a mystery…

Despite their social dysfuntions, their quirks and their oddness, they were happy, and that’s what really matters.

The end.

Category: Bonny Annie, Cap'n Jack Henry, Dirty Harry, The Pirate Mom Speaks, homeschooling Tags: global warming, home schooling, kids, oddballs 9 Comments

Kids in the Kitchen: Thanksgiving Edition

November

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Kids in the Kitchen was a feature on my old blog that I hadn’t implemented here on The Pirate Mom Dot Com yet. I like to have my kids with me in the kitchen (sometimes). I like to teach them new skills (sometimes). I enjoy when we can all pitch in together and get ‘er done (sometimes).

When I was a child, I spent most of my Thanksgivings watching the parades in my PJs and being really hungry until about 3:00pm when we could finally eat. All the while my mom and grandma slaved away in the kitchen, working to put a feast on the table for our family. Not that I want to rob my own children of those same experiences, but I see value in their helping prepare the annual meal. It doesn’t have to be complex or even very time-consuming. Here is how my children helped this year…

Bonny Annie is usually in charge of the desserts, and this year was no exception. She always makes pumpkin pie, but this year she also wanted to try apple pie, and both creations were very delicious.

Dirty Harry made the green bean casserole (with a little help). And, as you can see, hair cuts are optional for being able to help in the kitchen.

When your kids help, I’ve discovered they eat more. Harrison had three helpings of his casserole. The only thing he’s ever eaten three helpings of willingly is perhaps Laffy Taffy.

Cap’n Jack Henry helped with nothing. He did, however, manage to be cute enough to inspire creative dessert concoctions.

Here are some other ideas to get your kids involved in holiday meal preparation…

Help to prepare Jell-o salads. They are really hard to mess up, but I actually managed to do so this year.
Arrange veggies and dip for an appetizer tray.
Set the table.
Pour drinks.
Bake the rolls.
Make a salad.

The possibities are endless, depending on what you and your family traditionally have on the table. Just make sure to involve the young ones. It will guarantee happy, thankful faces!

Category: Grub, My Crew Tags: green bean casserole, kids, pie, Thanksgiving 7 Comments

School Pictures

August

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I am not a photographer. I have a point-and-shoot camera.

Big D is a photographer. He has not one, but two, top of the line SLR cameras.

But Big D has a life, and I do not, so when I saw that this week for the….

…was school portrait week, I knew I would have to try to photograph my kids, because there is no way in our busy week that I could ask Big D to drag out his backdrops and tripods and such.

Here are my results…

Bonny Annie, my oldest, is smart, creative and fun. Her academic strength lies in the language arts areas, yet she wants to be a missionary doctor someday, and is aptly fascinated by science. She loves to read and be crafty. She likes to watch good movies, Meet Me in St. Louisbeing an all-time favorite. She loves drama…on stage and off. She is a blackbelt in Tae Kwon Do and wins medals at every tournament she attends. She takes great care of her baby brother and nitpicks the middle one. She is turning 13 in just a couple of weeks. That scares me. It scares me badly.

Dirty Harry, my middle child, is athletic, sensitive and hilarious. His favorite subjects include reading, history, science and spelling. He doesn’t like math, but he’s a grade ahead of where he’s supposed to be. He loves Legos and the Wii. When he grows up he wants to be a professional baseball player, but if that doesn’t work out then he wants to be a Navy chaplain. He is also a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and is currently playing on a nine year-old travel baseball team for our town. He thrives in dirt, sweat and grime.

Cap’n Jack Henry, my baby, is in pre-pre-pre-pre K. He is happy, hungry and loud. He likes books, teething rings and stuffed animals. He will be a year-old in November, but how can that be??? He was only a little over five pounds at birth, but he’s more than tripled his weight since then and all of the problems that the doctors anticipated when he was in the NICU for a week have dissipated as he’s turned out to be a healthy, thriving young un’. He is a joy and fills our days with laughter….and diapers.

And that’s it. Those are the students who grace the corridors and desks of Hilltop Academy, drinking our milk and breaking our chalk.

I am blessed.

Category: My Crew, homeschooling Tags: baby, home schooling, kids, photography 18 Comments

Where it ALL Happens…

August

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(A quick side note before I jump right in here…..Sheesh! I’ve been trying to blog since Sunday night. We started back-to-school on Monday…more on that later…and I have not had a spare minute since it seems. Sorry. I think I am going to have to start getting up at 4:30am to blog. Or maybe hire a nanny. I’m not sure, but I’m going to find a way to be on here more regularly! Promise!)

Okay, now on to business…

This week the theme for the Not-Back-to-School-Blog-Hop is school rooms. I have had a lot of fun perusing the pictures that everyone has posted of their rooms and such.

We are trying something new this year…the dining room table.

I have never liked the idea of doing school at the table. Mainly because before Cap’n Jack Henry came along and took up a lot of our space, we had a whole bull-honkin’ school room. I also didn’t want my dining room/kitchen space to look like this all day long….

But this is the way it has to be for right now. As you can see, our living room (in the background) is home to much of Jack Henry’s “stuff”, so it just makes sense for us to be down here where he can be entertained. The kids and I all have totes that we keep the books and manuals that we will need for the day, so it makes clean-up in the afternoons easy.

The above was a picture from our first day back to school. It went fairly smoothly. We only had two major meltdowns. Jack Henry did great. He spent part of his day at the table with us eating reading a book.

I found a little basket that we already had and filled it with small plastic cups. It made a great table organizer for all the odds and ends that we need throughout the day.

Chalk? Chalk?! Why would we need chalk? Well, because this messy area is going to be a wall chalkboard by next week…

Yep! The whole wall…I can’t wait. That area has been a dead zone in our house for a while, a total catch-all for clutter and junk. Now, at least it will be functional.

Of course even with all the new bells and whistles of the dining room, the kids still find other places to hang out and do their work.

There’s our loft, complete with overflowing bookshelves and the comfy denim furniture…

Both of them have their own desks in their rooms where some work gets done…

Above is Bonny Annie’s desk, obviously. I’m not the only pirate fan around here, you can see. It’s in our blood.

I’m sorry I can’t show you Dirty Harry’s desk. It is…well…umm…dirty.

They also like to read in their beds.

Bonny Annie again. I could show you Dirty Harry’s bed, but then I’d have to shoot you.

And then, finally, one of my students occasionally does his lessons on the sofa….

Sorta.

Good gravy. I can NEVER send that one off to school, can I?

Category: homeschooling Tags: baby, books, home schooling, kids 11 Comments

Some Things That DO NOT Go Together

August

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Vacation and blogging

Sorry, people, but I tried. Even with a laptop in tow, I’m useless while vacationing obviously.

2. Lack of sleep and blogging

3. Black and navy blue

It just doesn’t work, and I’m always baffled that people still try this combination. No, no, no. I have always been a little freaky about color combos, but if I were teaching a color-matching class, this would be lesson #1.

4. Me and Big D on Facebook using the live chat feature

Can you say “Argghhhh”?

5. Clara and long car trips

I’m still trying to figure out how a little 15 pound dog can regurgitate 30 pounds of vomit…

6. Big D and jet lag

7. Me and Big D’s jet lag

8. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton

9. Jack Henry and teething pain

10. Me and Jack Henry’s teething pain

11. Bacon and chocolate

I actually saw the two paired together in a candy bar at World Market while in Charleston. Yuck. The chocolate with sea salt, however, was to die for. It’s like a chocolate covered pretzel without the pretzel.

And that’s all I have at the moment, because we’re still dealing with the jet lag and teething pain, and my brain power is down to about 45%. I plan on getting back to my regular blog schedule this week. Maybe.

So, what do you think doesn’t go together?

Category: My Crew, The Pirate Mom Speaks Tags: blogging, family, humor, kids 7 Comments

Thunderstruck

July

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Thunderstruck: Adj. as if struck dumb with astonishment and surprise

Have you ever been thunderstruck? I try not to be, but when your family is made up of Big D, Bonny Annie, Dirty Harry and Cap’n Jack Henry it seems to be a way of life. Also, have you ever noticed that different things cause different people to be thunderstruck? I mean what shocks one person is barely a blip on the screen of another.

Take Bonny Annie’s recent hairstyle…

I was mildly thunderstruck when I saw her bound down our stairs with dreadlocks on the morning of our departure for South Carolina. But I was even more thunderstruck (thunderstricken?) when she wanted to know if I thought she looked African American. I bit my tongue to keep from laughing. The child is from Swedish and Irish/European ancestry. She is a redhead. With freckles. She has to use SPF50 sunscreen. Again, even more thunderstruckism occured when she was disappointed that she did not look African American and she confessed that she had always wanted to look thusly. You learn something new everyday, I guess.

Big D, I’m quite sure was (or will be) thunderstruck to see that I was indeed able to pack our van for the trip by myself.

Now, don’t tell anyone this, okay? But I was a little thunderstruck by this as well. There was a moment that I didn’t think I could do it either.

Later, on our trip, I was thunderstruck by this…

Not so much that Indiana Mimi is drinking Pepsi from one of Jack Henry’s bottles (because I was the one who poured it for her), but that she actually drank it and posed for a picture with it. I mean she knows any photo I take is fair game for my blog or Facebook, but there she sat, poised with her beverage in a baby’s bottle, allowing me to capture the moment with my camera. I think Indiana Mimi must have been very tired.

Before we left on our trip, I had asked Annaleigh to watch Jack Henry for me for a while so that I could get some packing done, and I was thunderstruck by this site in her room when I was later looking for them….

Her explanation was that she was trying to get some packing done herself, and was unsuccessful with Jack Henry rolling all over her bed. She found that he was happy….and contained….when placed inside her open suitcase. Now that I’m here at home by myself with the Cap’n, I’m finding this may not be such a bad idea. Where is that suitcase, anyway?

I don’t think anyone was more thunderstruck than Clara to be brought to a home and plunked down in front of her mirror image: her sister, Sadie, who is owned by my sister’s family. I think what was most thunderstriking to Clara was that she discovered on this trip that she is, in fact, a dog. We do not sniff her rear or try to clean her ears with our tongues or try to steal and chew on her toys. She sleeps in the kids’ beds, takes showers with them and sits on the sofa to watch TV. It was a rude awakening for Miss Clara to be treated like a dog by other dogs, no less….but a fun one, eventually.

I was not thunderstruck to be tail-gated in downtown Charleston, but Annaleigh and Harrison were VERY thunderstruck that we were being tail-gated by this…

I guess it’s all perspective.

I’ll leave you with this short video clip of Harrison’s All-Star team being announced at the opening ceremony at the TN Youth Baseball Assoc. championships. Because, ironically, they marched to AC/DC’s song “Thunderstruck.” (Dirty Harry is one that is carrying a smaller sign in the front right. The one with the sunglasses on his cap.)

So, what gets you all thunderstruck?

Category: My Crew, Uncategorized Tags: Charleston, humor, kids, thunderstruck 9 Comments

I Came. I Saw. I Heckled.

July

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Revenge is sweet.

Dirty Harry, as you know if you’re a regular visitor to my blog, plays baseball, and he made All-Stars. This week the team has been playing in our district tournament, and we’ve been doing really well. As a matter of fact, last night we played for the championship. We lost, but I don’t want to talk about that right now. It still hurts a little….especially since we lost in extra innings. Because our home town was hosting this event, the stands were extraordinarily crowded, and since I’m always lugging a large stroller, a diaper bag, several folding chairs, and a large iced coffee from McDonald’s, I decided that we would try sitting out behind the left field fence.

Our view was very good, and it wasn’t until we were stationed out there that I thought about the fact that we were directly behind Dirty Harry’s position of left field. And it wasn’t until we were out there for a while that I realized this was my golden opportunity to heckle him to death.

Oh, and heckle I did.

Hustle Harrison! Are your feet made of lead?

Catch the ball!

Use two hands!

Throw it in!

Second base! Second base!

After a while I realized there was no reason to limit my comments to just baseball. This was my chance to let it all out, to let him know how I feel about…well…everything/

Clean your room, #13!

Don’t leave your underwear on the bathroom floor!

Your handwriting is atrocious!

I still have nasty scars and stretch marks from when I carried you and brought you into the world!

He couldn’t do anything about it. He had to just stand there and play left field and take it like a man. But play he did! That boy caught almost half a dozen fly balls! Which only made me think I should heckle him more often.

I am sorry about blogging about baseball so much, but we really haven’t done much else lately. It is consuming our lives…..or ruining it in Bonny Annie’s estimation. Speaking of Bonny Annie, she was at the game in left field with me too…

She reads her Harry Potterbooks, makes trips to the concession stand for Icees, and complains about being there. I have to heckle her too.

Stop you’re bellyaching! Do you know how many Nutcracker performances your brother has had to sit through?!

I don’t think she heard me.

Cap’n Jack Henry was there as well.

He’s a heckler too.

Get the ball, Bubby! Get it!

Throw him out!

And then it turned ugly, and he started heckling me…

Get me off this ballfield, woman! I’ve been on a baseball field for half my life!

Take this silly bib off of me!

Where is my pacifier?!

Clearly I’m going to have to use a different tactic with this one. Heckling, I believe, will get me nowhere.

Category: Bonny Annie, Cap'n Jack Henry, Dirty Harry, My Crew Tags: baseball, humor, kids 2 Comments

Very Bizarre Situations

July

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I am convinced that is what VBS really stands for. Don’t give me any of that Vacation Bible School business. I know better.

Maybe I feel this way because I work in crafts. I’ve done this for about the past five years now, and it may be that the glue is finally getting to my brain. All I know is that you hear strange things back in the craft room. You say strange things back in the craft room.

One night we made hats. Well, the hats were pre-made, but we decorated the hats with fabric markers and stencils. This kid was coloring his hat when I heard the following conversation:

Kid: I’m drawing the Ten Commandments on my hat.

Friend: Why?

Kid: Because I like the Ten Commandments.

Friend: But why do you want them on your hat?

Kid: Because I like hats with the Ten Commandments on them.

Why yes, of course. I was just at Kohl’s the other day, and they had a very nice selection of Ten Commandment hats.

On another day, I was trying to feed Cap’n Jack Henry a jar of baby food in between classes. I didn’t finish in time, and I still had his car seat propped up on one of the tables trying to force feed him a jar of sweet potatoes. A little girl who was coming into the craft room came around to look at Jack.

Little Girl: Is that your baby?

Me: No, I just went and grabbed a baby from the nursery, brought him into the craft room, strapped him into this seat, and am now attempting to feed him something that looks like it came from his diaper. (Actually, I just answered, “yes.”)

Little Girl: She’s cute.

Me: Thank you, but he’s a boy.

Little Girl: Oh. What are you feeding him?

Me: Sweet potatoes.

Little Girl: Does he like it?

Me: I think so. He’s eating it. (Please note, at this point Jack Henry started blowing raspberries, nearly spraying me and Little Girl with his dinner.)

Little Girl: I don’t think he likes it. I wouldn’t like it.

Me: Me neither. (And I proceeded then to pack up Jack Henry and take him back to the nursery.)

On another night, we were making necklaces. I was helping a particular kid who has a brother that I always confuse for him. For privacy purposes, I’ll just refer to them as Tom and Jerry.

Me: Tom, would you like for me to tie your necklace for you.

Tom just stands there staring at me.

Me: Well, would you like that, Tom?

Nothing. More staring.

Me: Tom, I can tie your necklace if you’d like. Then you can wear it.

Tom still just stares.

Me: (turning a little purple) TOM….why aren’t you answering me?!

Tom: Because I’m not Tom. I’m Jerry.

Me: (slowly exhaling, counting to ten) Well, why didn’t you just say so?

Jerry: I don’t know.

Another group was coloring puzzles with scenes from the Bible one night, and I overheard this conversation:

Group Leader: Oh my, Little Boy! You are coloring that picture very nicely!

Little Boy: Do you know how I know how to color Noah’s Ark like this?

Group Leader: (smiles proudly) You must have read about it in your Bible.

Little Boy: Ummm, no. I saw it on Evan Almighty.

Frankly, I could go on and on with little bizarre vignettes such as this. What’s amazing is that despite what happens for twenty minutes each night in the craft room, the Gospel is always presented along the way, and every year we have kids who are touched and changed. My own Bonny Annie came to Christ at VBS several years ago, which is why I always show up with my glue sticks, and my markers, and my pipe cleaners and have strange conversations with five year-olds.

I will leave you with one last very bizare situation.

One night the oldest group was making sand art crosses, and I heard myself shout the following:

Alright, everyone! The most important thing to remember is to always hold the cross upside-down!

Thankfully none of the kids were bothered by my Satanic instruction, and I can assure you that most of them did not follow my advice anyway because there was colored sand everywhere!

Category: The Pirate Mom Speaks, crafts Tags: humor, kids, VBS 8 Comments

9:00 am Photo Shoot

June

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What do you get when you when you cross…