"I want to be part of the community..."

About a week ago my husband stated that he wanted to be more involved in our Buddhist community. We discussed going to the meditation and yoga classes. We discussed joining one of the groups and actually taking the classes offered.

Today as Princess and I were discussing the upcoming Obon Festival, she was really excited about learning a few of the Bon Odori dance steps. (A very abbreviated lesson on Obon:  Obon is a time when you honor the spirit's of your ancestors. The dance is a folk dance to welcome the spirits.)

Princess and I discussed going to the lessons and dancing in the festival. Since it will be somewhat dark and there will be other people there who have no clue what they are doing, I agreed that I would go to the lessons with her. I am what you would call rhythmically-challenged. (I have Zumba on the Wii, so I don't have to shame myself in public.) 

Princess asked Military Dad if he wanted to go with us. His immediate reaction was no, but then after further discussion (READ: begging) he agreed. Here is how it went:

Princess: Daddy, can we do the Obon dance lessons?

MD: Sure, when is it?

Me: Tuesdays at 7.

MD: How much is it?

Me: It's free.

MD: What am I missing here?

Princess: We are going to learn how to dance for the Obon festival.

MD: Wait, what?! I don't dance.

Me: You said you wanted to be part of the community.

MD: NOT DANCING!

(Laughter on my part; panic on his.)

Me: You dance around, in a circle. They actually have lines painted on the ground and you follow what the person in front of you does. It's easy. Look, I'll show you some YouTube videos and you can see that it isn't that hard.

(watched several videos)

MD: (I'm not sure whether the look was pure terror or part of an anxiety attack - but we'll go with "look of surprise.")

Me: It's Tuesdays at 7. The kids will have a blast.

MD: So we show up and they tell us what to do? We don't have to actually do it at the festival though, right?!

Me: Yes, we will go learn the steps and then watch other people do it during the festival. (Knowing that his daughter will drag him into the middle of the fray and he will willingly go.)

Why My Cat is a Jerk - Reasons #16 through #25

I am not going to even get into the story as how we decided to add another animal into our family. I blame my husband's horrible lack of will power when it comes to pets. (Not really, I'm just as bad!) The total in our household is now: 2 cats, 2 dogs, 2 kids and 2 adults. Depending on the day, we have 6 animals and 2 adults.

We adopted a cute, pure bred Siamese from the SPCA. I still don't know how we managed this, but once you have a Siamese in your life, they aren't easy to forget. Siamese cats are "different" than your normal mutt or pure bred cats. They have this personality that is unique. Add in some serious intelligence and you have a dangerous combination. Yes, Siamese cats can, and will, learn tricks. I read somewhere that because of their intelligence they are the easiest to train. Let's go back to that personality bit....their personality enables them to now use this new trick in fun and interesting ways AGAINST you.

Siamese are also social cats, in that they like to let everyone else know where they are...A LOT! Not only that, but every Siamese I have heard has a distinct meow. It's either, chirping, or imagine the sound of trying to say all of your vowels at the same time. (Ha ha, you totally tried to do it, didn't you?!)

Knowing all these facts, once that emaciated little kitten purred, and let Little Dude brush him at the SPCA, we were done for. Home he went. Once he got acclimated, we found out that he was in fact, not neutered. He displayed all sorts of actions that were difficult to explain to Little Dude and Princess. Especially when the actions were happening to them (and everything else that would lie still long enough). Fortunately, the SPCA believed me when I said that he might be cryptorchid (his testicles didn't drop) and fixed the issue. Now he only occasionally humps his blanket. I'm cool with that and so are my kids. 

We also let Little Dude help name him. In hindsight, watching the Avenger's movie right before asking for a name from a 4 year old boy, wasn't the best idea. I'm not sure if the kitten REALLY fits the name, or we cursed ourselves, and this kitty is choosing to live up to his name. 

Introducing Loki...

Aww! He's so cute!
HA! Don't let that little fur-ball trick you, he's a sneaky little turd. Here are just a few of the fun and exciting things he does:

• Waits for you to walk by couch, bed, stairs, door (pretty much anything he can hide around the corner) then attacks either your feet, or jumps at you in that ninja kitty move you see on so many videos.
• We have a curtain (several actually) in our bedroom that he will hide behind. Once you walk by it he will jump at you, through the curtain, at a height of about 4 feet. It's terrifying if you don't know he's there. One day I was brushing my teeth on the other side of that curtain. He jumped through the curtain, hitting me in the stomach, causing me to hit myself in the mouth with my own toothbrush. I had a fat lip for 4 days!
• He sneaks into the kid's Lego stash and randomly deposits them all over the house. I'm glad I see him do this, otherwise my poor kids would get blamed. It's just annoying until you have to walk through the house at night, then those innocent Legos become torture-by-foot devices.
• Loki also has a thing for socks. Military Dad has always had this thing about leaving his socks wherever he happens to take them off. My kids now have a thing about leaving their socks wherever they take them off. Loki loves this. He drags the socks all over the house playing with them. The problem is now laundry day is even worse with unmatched socks!
• He evidently likes the taste of wine...

• We also have to keep our eyes peeled for him when we do the dishes. I have no idea why, but he loves to get inside the dishwasher as we load the dishwasher. He doesn't do anything but sit behind the bottom rack; guess he likes the view?

• He also used to chew on the carpeted stairs. Now that I'm remodeling the stairs with wooden flooring, I thought the stair chewing would stop. I was correct....however, he has now taken to chewing my meticulously placed painter's tape. This is my THIRD application of the expensive masking tape, just so I don't accidentally paint the wrong thing!!!
  

After Loki is done having his jerk moments, he can be the sweetest thing, if he is in the mood. He plays with our rat terrier in a way that they just roll around in weird ball of fur. He cuddles right down in the middle of the dogs, as if he is one. He does this thing we call "noggins" where he will rub his head against yours. He will even give you nose kisses (his nose touches your nose).

While I joke that Loki can be a jerk, he is part of the family. As part of the family we will always love him, despite his weirdness. However, I will make sure that our next cat is named "Cuddles," "Sweetie," or anything not remotely related to Gods/Goddesses that are associated with mischief!

Spelling Bees (aka another way for me to feel stupid)

Princess made the final cut to make it into her school's Spelling Bee. She had to be one of the top three in her class to compete. Yay! I remember my first Spelling Bee and how it was fun. At least it was fun until you got THAT word. For those that are losers like me and didn't complete the spelling bee, you know which word I'm talking about. THAT word, is the word that you will remember how to spell for the rest of your life. You will also remember the definition for the rest of your life. My word was oafish. It makes sense, it means stupid, uncultured or clumsy. Jerks! (shaking fist in the air).

Knowing the bad taste that spelling bee left, I wasn't about to pressure Princess and make her feel like she had to succeed. We were just happy making it to the competition.

Then the teachers sent out the practice lists for each grade. Evidently people practice for these things with a vigor that is comical. (If parents would take this much interest in the rest of their kid's education, we wouldn't be behind other countries in the value of education.) Princess decides she would like to practice, so I print off the 2nd grade lists which result in 30 pages of words! WTH? Yes, I have OCDs but seriously people, have you ever heard of Excel and using a spreadsheet? I got our list down to 6 pages, saved a couple trees in the process. I'm feeling great about myself.

Our practice routine is not what you would call "dedicated." When we remember, we practice. Today was the first time we actually sat down and practiced in a serious manner. I explained to her about why she needs to repeat the word, spell the word and then say the word again. I didn't even mention asking for the parts of speech, using it in a sentence or that whole where the word originated from thing. (Mostly because I couldn't tell her - my husband hasn't exactly banned me from discussing parts of speech, but it's coming.)

What I notice is my daughter is once again smarter than me. When we get to certain words, she asks for the definition, or for me to use it in a sentence. I'm proud of her, because she is thinking before she spells. Then she starts asking for these things on words that aren't as easy for me to define, or use in a sentence. I'm not the English/grammar person in this house; I am the math/science person. My husband could probably do this in his sleep, I need a lot of help and coffee. This results in a 20 minute break from practice, while I tear the house apart looking for ONE dictionary. I'm pretty sure we have three, but the best I could do was the Child's Dictionary. It was nice, it had pictures. It made me feel that this dictionary was appropriate, I felt it understood my problems and tried to help. They were really pretty pictures.

The spelling bee is in a couple of weeks, so wish Princess luck. She will need it since she has her mom and a Child's Dictionary helping her!

I have a dilemma

Little Dude is in a preschool that is very education driven and they learn through play activities. He is a pretty bright kid, so he needs to be challenged, otherwise he gets bored and I lose my patience. I'm not complaining, I am very happy to have two VERY bright kids that are genetically related to me! My problem comes when they get bored with my meticulously planned activities, because they aren't challenging enough! I consider myself a pretty smart woman, but when I'm learning new ways to do math (that would've made calculus WAY easier) because of my 2nd grader's homework, it's a little depressing.

Back to my story. Little Dude gets homework every month that goes along with the lesson plan they are working on. There is a math concept section and a reading/writing concept section. He gets one week to turn them in. The homework isn't that challenging in itself, it's getting Little Dude to sit down long enough to do it. Mostly the homework involves counting things, grouping things, cutting random things and gluing other things. (By the way, you should begin to stockpile "crap" magazines when your child reaches 4 years of age. There will come a time when they need to cut things out. I had to get over the horror of some of my cooking magazines being slaughtered.)

This week's homework is actually pretty simple and will be easy to get him to sit down and finish. Why am I having a dilemma? In the reading/writing section he has to choose his favorite song, write the title, explain what happens in the song and then draw a picture. I look back on my mothering and wonder at what point I went wrong, even though I enjoy that he likes my music.

Princess would love when I sang the lullabies and kid songs when she was younger. I think she still might enjoy hearing me sing them. Little Dude on the other hand, wasn't as appreciative of my singing abilities and wouldn't let me sing. I understand that I am not the next American Idol, but I'm not awful. You want awful? Walk on to any school yard and hum a few lines of "Let It Go" and just stand back and listen in horror. Some kids sound great, but the others...wow! Princess just happens to be one of the "others," so I know why Little Dude doesn't like us singing.

Every once in awhile though, the family can get together and belt a few songs out and not worry about how we sound. It's those songs we will blast in the car and sing as loudly as we can. Those songs happen to be from groups such as: Imagine Dragons, Fall Out Boy, Panic at the Disco and Katy Perry. (Yes, Katy Perry.)
Obviously I try very hard to play the radio edited versions of these groups, just because I swear enough for my own kids, they don't need to pick it up while singing.

While I am very happy that Fall Out Boy and Panic at the Disco were not chosen as the group of his favorite song, he did choose a song by Imagine Dragons that is the reason for my dilemma. If you have not heard or watched the video for "Radioactive," it is a pretty good song, with an even more entertaining video.

Here is the video link, if you're interested.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktvTqknDobU&feature=kp

If you just listen to the lyrics, it would be pretty difficult for a preschooler to explain what is going on. The problem is, Little Dude has seen the video several times, because honestly I find it amusing. If you haven't watched it, you should, for many reason that include a cameo by Lou Diamond Phillips. Basically it involves an underground Muppet/stuffed toy fighting ring. Mr. Phillips is the cage boss. Stuffed toys go up against this purple Muppet character and get annihilated.

If you follow my husband's blog about his journeys with Sweet Peach, Footy and Truman, my poor Truman is one of the unfortunate toys. My husband loves this because of our college rivalry and that fact my poor stuffed tiger is named Truman (college mascot's name). He's just sick, but that's his college's fault.

My dilemma is, do I let my preschooler write about, and draw images of Muppets and toy bears, fighting to the death? I can't think of any scenario in the video that he could draw without getting a "concerned note" or phone call about.

I'm hoping I can get him to come up with a second favorite song. My luck, he'll choose a Fall Out Boy or Panic at the Disco song. I guess I should be happy, at least neither one of my kids like Bieber, Cyrus or One Direction. Ha! I'll take a note home any day over them liking those "artists."