Stay-at-home thoughts as summer vacation approaches...

When you're a stay-at-home-dad and your kids are in school all day, there is a lot of time to wonder if you should be doing something else.  And I've been doing that a lot lately.

But now that we're down to just a handful of days left in the school year, I am reminded why I quit my job six years ago.  I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to spend so much time with my kids.

We get to make trips to the library and the pool, or just spend lazy mornings in our PJs.  We can drive up to the zoo, or over to the kids museum, or hit the mini-golf course.

When fall rolls around and another school year starts, I'll go back to figuring out what I want to be when I grow up.  But for the summer, I get to be a dad.   :)

The capital of Kentucky is...

My fourth grade daughter had a quiz today on the southern states and their capitals.  We worked on them last night and for the most part she had them down.  There were a couple she just couldn't remember, one of those was Kentucky.

So to help her remember, I reminded her that Grandpa Rick lives right next to Kentucky, and she always likes going over the river into Kentucky.

That helped.
She correctly identified Kentucky on the quiz today.

We also worked on remembering Kentucky's capital of Frankfort because it has a boy's name in it and so does Kentucky.  I hoped she would remember "Frank" and "Kent."

She listed the capital of Kentucky as Rick.    :)

Left Over Spaghetti O's lesson

Today my daughter helped me make some Spaghetti O's to send to school in her lunch to test out the new thermos we got for her.  I left the extras in a bowl on the counter while I took the kids to school.  This led to the discovery that when cats eat Spaghetti O's they puke orange.  And that is really hard to get out of light colored carpet.  Too bad we rented to Rug Doctor to clean the carpets last weekend....a lot of good that did us.

Cereal Launcher

Wow.  Somebody sat in a meeting at General Mills and suggested, "Let's encourage kids to plink their cereal across the room.  That will go over well with the parents!"

Here is the back of our Lucky Charms box.

And sure, that does sound like fun, but I think I'll wait and launch my cereal while the kids are at school...I don't want to encourage any food flicking habits.  As long as the dog eats all the marshmallows I have it all cleaned up before they get home, we won't have a problem.

The Battle For Allison's Animals

This is a story that my kids and I came up with.  If you've seen my daughter's room, it is not hard to figure out where we got our inspiration.

Once there was a girl named Allison and she loved stuffed animals.  Allison loved to collect stuffed animals.  She had more than “a lot” of them.  She had a few more than what most people would think is way too many.

And every time she had a birthday, or when it was time to make out her Christmas list, or when she had saved up enough of her allowance, she would always ask for more stuffed animals.

It was getting so that Allison did not have any more room to keep them.  Stuffed animals completely covered her bed, and the floor of her room, and the top of her dresser.  They also took up most of the playroom in the basement.  She had a few in her brother’s room, and she had a few in the living room.  And there were one or two more in the hall closet.  And maybe a couple out on the back porch.

And so when December came around that year, no one in her family was surprised to see her Christmas list was almost entirely made up of stuffed animals (she had a pony and a diamond tiara on the list too).

“Darling, I think maybe you have enough stuffed animals.  Maybe you should ask for something else this year,” her dad tried to tell her.

“It might be time to give some other toys a chance,” her mom tried to convince her.

But Allison was having none of that.

“I LOVE my stuffed animals!  They make me so happy and I need more!” she giggled as she ran around the house hugging them all (which took quite a long time, and included one or two rest breaks and a drink of water).

On Christmas morning, as Allison was unwrapping the last of six new stuffed animals, an alarm sounded and lights flashed in an office at the North Pole.

“We have a situation!” someone was shouting.

“Get some agents there on the double!” a voice blared over a loud speaker.

A few minutes later, back at Allison’s house, a small head was peaking in the living room window.  It seemed to be counting and writing something in a notebook.

Another small head appeared at her bedroom window, counting.

Soon, every window had a tiny head (with pointy ears)...counting.

“Call headquarters, we definitely have a violation here.”

Allison’s dad looked outside.  “Did you see something at the window?” he asked.  

“Why is the dog sniffing at the back door?” asked Allison’s little brother.

There was a knock at the front door.

Two very short men, dressed all in black, with very white skin (and very pointy ears) were standing on the front porch.

“Good morning, Sir.  We’re with the A.R.T.  We’ve been sent to investigate your stuffed animal count,” one of them said.  He was trying to sound important, but his high squeaky voice made the dad chuckle.

“You’re with the what?  Our stuffed animals?” the dad asked.  “Is this some kind of a joke?”

“The A.R.T.  The Animal Relocation Team.”  the little man (or was he a little boy?) answered while showing his badge.  “May we have a word with...” he paused and looked at his notes.  “A word with Allison?” he asked.

Allison was busy setting up a tea party to welcome her new friends and had not noticed the visitors.

“What’s this about?” the dad asked.

“I’m afraid we need to take some of these stuffed animals with us.  She has too many.”

“WHAT?” Allison screamed, suddenly aware of the little men (or were they boys?) in her living room.

“Move in team,” one of them said into his walkie talkie.  Suddenly two helicopters swooped over the house and many parachuting elves (If you haven’t guessed yet, that is what they were) floated down onto the front yard.  They ran into the house carrying very large nets, and one of them had a huge empty bag.

Before anybody knew what was happening, elves were running everywhere around the house, scooping up stuffed animals in their nets and filling the giant bag with them.  

Allison sat in the middle of the living room crying.  Her parents seemed to be too stunned to do anything but watch.  That’s when her little brother, Andrew, decided he had to do something, anything, to stop the madness.  He crept off silently into his bedroom.

He ran back moments later carrying his toy suction-cup dart blaster.  He spotted the nearest elf, and blasted a suction-cup squarely into the middle of the elf’s forehead.   The elf was so startled, he dropped his net and fell over backwards off the back of the sofa.  Andrew grabbed the net full of stuff animals and ran across the room, firing suction-cups in every direction as he ran.

Soon, most of the elves where lying on their backs with suction-cup darts sticking straight up in the air from their foreheads.  Andrew could barely hold all of the nets he had gathered.  But by now, his parents where scrambling around helping him pick up what was left of the  stuffed animals in the house.

Allison stopped crying, took a quick look around the house, grabbed the nearest elf by the big toe and started dragging him out the front door.  It wasn’t long before they had all of the stuffed animals recovered and gathered back in Allison’s bedroom.  Allison’s mom was now standing guard at the bedroom door.  Allison’s dad and brother joined her in dragging elves out the front door by their big toe’s.  (Apparently it takes an elf a long time to recover from a suction cup attack to the forehead.)

From a helicopter above the house, one of the elf pilots saw what was happening.  He made a call.

“We have a big problem down here,” he said.  “Get her down here now!”

Back in the house, things had quieted down.  Allison’s dad was just tossing the last elf onto the pile of elves in the front yard.  “I think that’s all of them,” he said.  “Everybody back in side, and lock all of the doors.

Just as they were getting the last door closed and locked, a loud rumbling came like thunder from down the street.  A motorcycle roared toward the house.

They all stood looking out the living room window, as a figure dressed all in black parked the motorcycle in the front yard.

It was an older woman, white hair, dressed in an all black karate outfit, complete with black bandana tied around her head.  She let out an ear piercing scream and came diving through the window. 

She moved quickly around the house, looking in all the corners of all the rooms before stopping just outside Allison’s bedroom.  She stood face to face with Allison’s mom.

Just then Andrew had another idea.  He snuck off toward the laundry room.

“They’re all in there....I can smell them.  I’m going to need to enter that room,” the mysterious woman in black said to Allison’s mom.

“And just why is that?” Mom asked.  She had seen Andrew crawl off and wanted to stall as long as she could to give him more time.

“Your daughter is over the approved limit for stuffed animal inventory levels established by the Claus-Elf Union Agreement of 1997.”  The woman held out a badge that read: Mrs. Claus, Toy Recovery Specialist, Level 1.  “I’m afraid we need to get into that room.”

By this time, Andrew had made his way to the laundry room and had grabbed a giant bag full of dirty laundry.  (The laundry bag was always extra full when it was Dad’s turn to do the wash.)  He dragged the bag outside and into Allison’s room through the window.

Allison had seen him crawl past the window outside and knew she had to get him more time for his plan.

“NO!” she screamed as she grabbed onto Mrs. Claus’ leg.  “They’re all mine!”

“Let go of me, child.  Don’t make this any harder than it has to be,” Mrs. Claus said as she tried to pry Allison off of her leg.

“THEY’RE MINE!!!!” Allison screamed.  At that moment she saw Andrew dragging the bag of stuffed animals the other way past the window.

“You are in violation, and we need to take care of this situation,” Mrs. Claus said while trying to shake the girl from her leg.

Just then Andrew reappeared in the living room.

“I guess you win,” he said winking at Allison.  “Let her go, sis.”

Allison slowly let go and Mom moved away from the door.

“You’ve made a wise choice,” Mrs. Claus said as she opened the door to Allison’s room.

By now, a couple of elves had recovered enough to help Mrs. Claus load the big extra full bag onto the back of her motorcycle.

“You can’t pull anything over on the A.R.T.” one of the elves laughed as he climbed into the helicopter.  It lifted off from the front yard and headed north. 

“I guess not,” the kids nodded and waved to the rest of the elves as they got into cars and drove off behind Mrs. Claus and her loud motorcycle.

After everyone was gone, Andrew turned to his family and said with a big grin, “I wonder if they’ll bring our laundry back after they’ve washed it.”

Allison ran to the laundry room and giggled as she dove into the laundry bag full of her stuffed animals.