{"id":842,"date":"2011-12-09T13:38:47","date_gmt":"2011-12-09T17:38:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=842"},"modified":"2011-12-09T13:39:14","modified_gmt":"2011-12-09T17:39:14","slug":"friday-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/?p=842","title":{"rendered":"Friday Updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>A. Religiously, my younger son has come home from school every day this week, shut his bedroom door for a while, and then emerged with more papers in this old pickle jar. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153papers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are our Christmas presents from him.<\/p>\n

B. As of Monday, our fridge is finally no longer leaking all over our floor (or beeping incessantly, a later development in what I now call The Saga of the Appliances). We have high hopes for having the oven restored to its intended glory sometime next week. Girlfriend needs to do some serious baking soon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>C. My younger son and I made a gingerbread house this week. Three years ago, I had the idea that the small people would make a gingerbread house together, with minimal supervision. At the time, they were 6, 4, and 1 respectively. There is no explanation for what I was thinking. None. Obviously, I made the gingerbread house. And sadly, it appeared as if the small people had in fact made it.<\/p>\n

So, since then, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve tried convoluted measures of distraction whenever the subject of gingerbread houses comes up, like, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hey, want to go to Disney World tomorrow?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Wait, did I just see SpongeBob walking outside the store?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

This year, however, all distractions proved futile. Even LCB\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s circumloquacious<\/a> nature proved no match for my son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tenacity.<\/p>\n

So, he and I spent the better part of Wednesday night putting together one of those pre-baked kits. And I will say, my son did the lion\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s share of it. I warned him that I could not make the swirls like the ones on the picture on the box. He refused to believe me, and after being disappointed with his own attempts, he insisted that I make the swirl above the window. After I finished, his only response was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I wish I had made the swirl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

D. In a store this week, a sweet little girl who looked not unlike Shirley Temple (albeit with less curls) walked up to me and asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Do you have kids?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I answered.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Here, take this then,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, and threw a large stuffed animal (with tags) in my cart.<\/p>\n

Having no idea what it even was at first, I asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Are you sure you don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want it?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I do want it, but I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have it, so you should take it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she surmised, most logically I think.<\/p>\n

I smiled and thanked her, and then her mom suddenly realized what she had done and grabbed the stuffed animal back, not overly amused, while her mother\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s friend and I smiled and tried not to laugh. Honestly, the delivery was beyond adorable.<\/p>\n

E. Recently, my older son has decided to take the higher path, the road less traveled. To wit, he has determined that all math shall be done in his head. Every. Single. Problem. Regardless. Of. Magnitude. While it may turn out to foster great mental fortitude in him, the road less traveled is starting to give me headaches. Seriously. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t look at his face when he is doing math anymore. It births angst in me.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>F. Baby-girl came to me upset the other night. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be cute,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she moaned.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I answered cautiously.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be very<\/em> cute, either,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she clarified.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to be adorable, either.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Honey, do you know what adorable means?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153No.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

So I explained it to her, and then asked, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What do you want to be?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, I only want to be a little<\/em> cute. Could you tell Daddy and brothers that I only want to be a little cute?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Okay honey, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll tell them.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

And thus she managed, with that exchange, to have completely sabotaged her own objective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A. Religiously, my younger son has come home from school every day this week, shut his bedroom door for a while, and then emerged with more papers in this old pickle jar. The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153papers\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are our Christmas presents from him. B. As of Monday, our fridge is finally no longer leaking all over our floor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[730,728,729,105,100,465,731],"class_list":["post-842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-islandlife","category-island-parenting","tag-cute-things-kids-say","tag-gingerbread-houses","tag-homemade-christmas-presents","tag-island-life","tag-island-living","tag-island-mom","tag-kids-gingerbread-houses"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/842\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.anislandmom.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}