Only brush the ones you want to keep

Chasing after all the little things and big things the kids need to be actively doing, can certainly be exhausting.   Teeth.   I have a hard enough time chasing after mine let alone the kids.   My hubby is better at chasing after their teeth and he hasn't been here much.   So I decided, after seeing a woman my age with disgustingly, screaming white teeth, to have a 'get your teeth whiter' contest.   I took pictures of their grins and next week we are going to take some new pictures and see if there is a difference.   I have picked up two minute hour glass timers (or whatever you call them) and that has helped some in the past, but the mere fact that they don't understand the twice a day concept makes me a bit tired.  

My mom, a dental hygienist by trade, seemed to have no trouble impressing upon us the importance of brushing but there were only two of us.   Charley and I have been boosting bottoms up on the counter, changing table, etc. for teeth brushing for almost 22 years and still counting.   The little ones get help and the older ones, we at this point, we can only pray they are chasing their teeth.   I have made the drill noise when asked what happens if they don't brush their teeth better............they have blank faces in return.   I hate that noise.  

It seems we escape the drill mainly for not drinking soda or juice etc.   They also have a mother who is incapable of making them cookies so that is a plus for them and my pocket book in dental bills.   Their father hates gum chewing.   He inherited that loathing from his parents who probably were strictly opposed to gum chewing from the lack of money for that luxury.   That too has helped.

I think I will go brush my teeth now.   Our reward for improvement in teeth brushing has been decided upon too by-the-way.   One package of Oreo cookies to be woofed by the kids who have shown improvement.   Perhaps we will have one package of Oreo's a week to make sure they are keeping up.

Our family is loud

You never notice how loud your family is until a quiet family comes to call.  Of course this was a reminder to me of what happens when I don't make any attempt to quiet the fam down.  My eldest daughter dear is the oldest of nine and is marrying the oldest of nine.   I think her hubby-to-be's Papa stressed the need for people to in the family to keep it to a low roar.   It was his family which came to call and I hope they will be okay with returning.  

Loud

 - I stubbed my toe.
- I have a teeny tiny scratch which mom can't see, but it hurts.
-I am Howard Cosell of the family and must describe everyone's activities as if we didn't notice them ourselves.
- We can't open the peanut butter jar.
- Everyone wants to the center of attention....duh.
- You have headphones in your ears and can't hear your parents calling you (loud parents).
- You are a short person and you like to scream and run around in circles with the other short people.
- You were an only child and you cannot understand why it is loud and then get louder to be heard.
- The manners pictures books are not sinking in.  
- The Tattle Tail book isn't having any effect either.
- Your parents are too tired to take you to time out in your room for the benefit of everyone else's nerves and improvement of headaches.
- Or.........everyone in the family is a comedian and wants the stage.
- the children of all ages have never been in study hall and don't realize that it might be helpful to keep quiet when other people are trying to study.   If no one realizes this then.........

It is true that the loud happens in a louder fashion when there are guests to tell stories to.   Wow.   It will be okay.  

There are many reasons to be loud but there are also some reasons to work on being quieter.   Can a family of eleven  learn to be quieter???    This is what I am pondering now.   How loud we are......sigh.

Four or five days later.....or more

On Monday I put a cup of butter in my awesome Bosch mixer which takes up tons of space on my limited counter.   I thought that banana oatmeal bars sounded.....um....healthy?     It sounded like one of those things which well organized, conscientious mothers make for their children for breakfast.   Well, I didn't get to the rest of the ingredients jumping in the mixer till....Thursday.   How pathetic is that???!!!!    In the meantime, the counter has been missing the dish drying rack as there was no room, who knows what shape the butter really is in, and the other adults in the family have worked patiently around it and didn't ask any questions.    The inside of me knew that there was most likely a bit of 'better not ask' going on in their heads and today hopefully they will get to eat some of it.   The sad thing is that I misread the recipe and put in white sugar instead of brown.   Four days and I still don't get it right.  

I see examples of this all over the place around here.    The kids dutifully squished the tomatoes and made sauce on Monday.....it is definitely boiled down and ready to be canned but it hasn't happened yet.   Martin found copious beans on Tuesday and they are snapped and ready to be canned.   They are waiting too.  

I've run experiments with the kids.   There was a pile of someone's socks in the hallway upstairs years back and I decided to see if they would ever disappear.   Well, I think after six months I gave up and decided to just pick them up but it was interesting to walk by.   I did mention them several times.   Experiments like this are a recipe for my insanity and shouldn't be tried.  

I am not sure how to turn off that overwhelm feeling but will push along to do the next thing and hope for the best....today.

I didn't see that there

My morning anxiety attack was over how many things I see scattered about that I am certain other people can see too but mysteriously don't know how to react.   For instance.......the two year old has dumped over the sock bin and had a sockfetti party.    What could I do about this???????   Hmmm.......   The garbage cans are washed and  lay blocking the back door.   What could I do about this?   Then there are the kitchen counters with mom's coffee pot vomit all over it........   The rodent of unusual size that opened the 50 pound bag of quick oats and missed his bowl too.    I think these sort of sites are what make me more ADD and anxious or at least equally anxious, than toddlers screaming and five or more people waiting for me to help them all at the same time.   I suppose this is also related to the helplessness factor.   How to cure this disease is probably the biggest unsolved mystery of all time.   I noticed that "The Story of the World" uses an example of archeologists finding a child's toy at an ancient settlement.   The example is made up of course but I have no doubt little sinners have left stuff laying about from the beginning of time.    We just have more of this junk than they did?  

I had the usual obnoxious mother idea of taking the kids on a tour of the countryside and seeing if we could find the most trashed property and perhaps even have a contest and check list of homes whose exteriors are peppered with garden tools, tractors, piles of disposed of junk, gardens in need of weeding etc.   Oh dear, I am giving myself another anxiety attack as we may have to drive to Arkansas to find them.  

Okay.   Time to take my negative attitude and proceed to direct my little dears to their tasks at hand and do the next thing and............try not to panic.  

I forgot the self harming patient

These patients are around two to seven years old and they have a strong propensity to trip.  "Don't run" cries the mother.   Silly mom.   Splat.   Brief silence.   Wailing and gnashing of teeth.   These are the self harming set of our family.   Lots of people have them in their families.   Since I am not much of the hovering mom, the poor children get a much delayed reaction to their owies but I do still scoop them up once I get around to reaching them and they get brushed up and the necessary first aid.   My  prescription for them would be tying pillows around them but they resist their treatment.  

Which patient are you?

I observed my children this morning with their crazy behavior while attempting to do simple things like stir the pancakes, stuff jars with green beans and basically walk through a room without arguing with anyone.   So.....in my usual crazy way I asked them which psyche ward patient they were? 

The passive aggressive patient who knows what they are supposed to do but quietly ignore the rules and procedures even when reminded.   In your face ignoring.   There seems some sinister pleasure in doing the opposite of what is expected.   The caretaker could clearly be getting frustrated but the rules don't apply to that patient.   The other side of this coin might be that they simply do not 'get' why their deaf ears are maddening.  

At this house we have particular children who might be diagnosed with some sort of 'outburst' disorder.   Not sure what that is called in the psychiatric world,  but when the outburst begins, these mostly small children need solitary confinement to end the episode.   I either get frustrated with the outburst or I might start to laugh as it just doesn't stop.  

Our moments of congregate living certainly are interesting.   I will continue to persevere in my quest to raise book worms, not for the benefits of their brain, but for the benefit of the noise level in the house.   Reading is very good and beneficial to the family.    It does encourage deaf ears to the rest of the world but overall if they all have their noses in books it might get quieter around here.   I am not there yet but I am trying.  

I personally am a fan of some quiet time in my padded room.   I don't have a room where it is barren and free of things which might hurt me as I still have a bunch of clutter and my bed is a storage place for everyone to dump their stuff on when they don't know what to do with it.   But.....despite the  junk, I can hide now and then, but they can still find me.  

This is going to hurt

Potential pain stared me in the face three times on the same stretch of road whilst out biking the last few days.   Earlier this week  I was zipping along and my least favorite surprise happened.   A dog with the fiercest growl came out of no where and got too close for comfort.    Fear of dogs....um....yep.  My mind went quickly to "this is going to hurt"  Fortunately the dog was only bluffing and my heart probably triple timed up that hill.  

The next day it had snowed the night before and all the roads were clear....except the growling dog road.   The growling dog did happen to make another appearance but I stayed calm and cool and didn't even give it credit for it's fierce growl..  Poor thing.  Growling wasted.   Anyway.....it suddenly got a bit more challenging to stay upright.   Snow.   Lots of it.  I slipped and slid my way up the hill on a not very melted snowy road.   Weeellllll.....what goes up, usually comes down.   On the other side of the hill the snow was much less cooperative.   I had a death grip on the handle bars and carefully searched for dry pavement.   That patch was a LONG way off.   "This is going to hurt" was very actively tripping through my head this time.   More like...."this going to hurt, this is going to hurt, this is going to hurt" sort of to the rhythm  of  "I think I can, I think I can, I think I can".    FINALLY reached the patch of pavement and FINALLY exhaled and was able to relax a bit grateful for my helmet and extra clothing even though I escaped  pain and also was thinking  of how stupid I was to attempt that hill with that much snow on the ground.   I am easily tempted when it comes to hills.  

The VERY next day, with nice clear roads, I.....succumbed to the growling, slipping, sliding road again.   What could go wrong today???  Right???   I might need to change my route.   I got to the top of the second hill and looked over at the same property I have passed day after day and noticed a big boxer like dog galloping down the drive way.  A few words came to mind....."This is going to...." amongst other words.    I had never seen THIS dog and it stopped halfway down the long driveway.  Phew.   You guessed it.   It changed its mind and started sprinting and barking fiercely at the stupid biker woman.    I was just waiting for it to take a hunk out of my leg.  "This is going to hurt"  (common theme on this road)  but fortunately the thing stopped its pursuit of the stupid me and went back home.   Deep breath.   Lots of them.   Have I mentioned I am scared of dogs????

I spent the rest of my ride home contemplating a new route.   We shall see if I am stupid....tomorrow.  

Air freshener

I am raising a passel of comedians.   If I take my crazy brood with me into stores, they are sure to entertain me with their observations of stupid product names etc.   We have had a long time fascination with air fresheners.   As the mother of six boys (and three girls), we were in a store reading the titles of air fresheners and we all burst out laughing at the one titled, "After the Rain".   Yes.....aptly  named for the bathroom.   We have been devoted customers of this variety ever since.   Tonight we were looking at carpet freshener, as we are obsessed with masking the smells of reality around here and the one we chose was "Mountain Rain".    So....the conversation then went to what exactly does mountain rain smell like as opposed to back yard rain or prairie rain.    I must say my children keep me amused.   The icing on the cake was when we were listening to Pandora and Dean Martin was singing some song about how he let this wonderful girl get away and my dear eldest blurts out, "Dumbo".   My kids kill me.   Dying of laughter would be a good way to go.   Added bonus to the whole evening was singing two of my favorite hymns at the Divine Service this evening, both of which I think I would like to be sung at my funeral.   My eldest broke out in this awesome descant on the final verse and in that case brought a teeny tear to my eye as well as a smile.   Who couldn't love "Sing with all the Saints" and "Lo! He comes".   Sweet

Van clarification

I have been instructed to clarify where van righteousness comes from and why it makes us laugh.   We live about 45 minutes from the heart of Amish country.  Whenever we venture that way in our 15 passenger van, Amish people everywhere we go stop what they are doing and wave at us.   I know they are waving because they think we are one of their drivers or they just love large vehicles in general.    It is funny.   I feel like I am in a parade.   

It is also true that I inwardly giggle when a family makes the leap to the 15 passenger van with the growing family size  glint in their eyes.   It is cute and it does make me laugh.  

Other 15 passenger white van humor has involved my observation that they are used as inmate chain gang transportation, mental hospital transportation, and also custodial vehicles.   We have a LOT of fifteen passenger vans at our church and many of them are white.  We are not really in church but having a meeting of mental patients (the parents).   

We are actually  using ours less as I don't use it as much since I am not hauling everyone with me very often.   So......I am not insulting van owners but finding humor in their use and the admiration of others, like the Amish.   Forgive my mockery.  

Van righteousness

Eldest daughter and I were musing last night about how, "he who drives a 15 passenger van, is truly righteous."   We were merely giggling over van pride and size as surely if we have that many children our righteousness MUST be secure.  (sarcasm).   My dear hubby took the 15 passenger van to work today as he is the designated driver for their Christmas work dinner out.   Last night he requested a laundry basket to clean out said van to prevent embarrassment over his children's flotsam.   I noticed he found a few towels from the summer swimming pool adventures.   If it is lost, look in the van should be our motto.   Six months of flotsam is sort of scary sometimes.   I am the mom who has to psyche myself up to loading small children into their car seat in our van as the effort to get there is daunting at times.   "Come on Karin, you can do it!"   Or, I with a guilty heart, plead with my older children to lock the little dears into their seats.   I think this began as pregnancy weariness and the mere effort of lifting my self up to do this but now I do not have that excuse and the little cherub faces really want mommy to do the job.   I guess I should see my 15 passenger van as yet another opportunity to burn calories.   Every parenting event surely is an opportunity for weight loss.   I wonder how many calories I burn folding all of their laundry and putting it away?   I should write a book about all the opportunities for weight loss with a family of nine kids.   Picking up the laundry off the floor would be right up there.    Who needs a gym anyway?   I have a house which I can barely keep up with and  kids who are much like I have been in this life of tidying up and can't seem to get their stuff put away.   The calories burned in chasing them down on these tasks and the mere thought of the chasing can leave me tempted by the bed magnet.

So.....does my van size make me righteous.   NO!!!!    It just gives me more opportunity for weight loss if I look upon all the opportunities as opportunities and not burdens.   Here's hoping.  

Family conversation

Anna, "You people talk a lot."   Yep.   Anna, "We need some music to drown you guys out."  Yep.  

Sock and laundry sorting.    This activity is basically avoided at all costs.   I do too much for these slugs and they know it.    Sort the socks then stuff the matched socks back in the basket and we still have no socks in our drawer.   My socks never return.    Smallish mommy feet compared to large son feet, find my socks being put in the five year old's drawer.    Why???   I need some socks!   When I find the socks they return with holes in them. 

Life around here is constant interruption.   The so called potty trained child makes an interesting project in my bathroom and another child comes in announcing there is a problem in the bathroom.   It is my fault that nothing gets done around here when I decide to sit down and write nonsense.  My sitting down is the signal to do nothing.     Eleven different ages at eleven different stages of life.   Hmmmm.......the one year old is generally happy and cute most of the time.    He has only learned to bonk siblings on the head while smiling.   He must not quite be to the age of reason......or....is he.    He has processed that when he bonks someone he will get a reaction.

I have at least one hundred bulbs left to plop in the ground and that might equal burning calories so I better go do that.   I did manage one hundredish so far after returning home from pondering how fat I am.   I came in for a break and made some non-calorie tea which every child is doing their best to tip over.   The coffee/tea dance is trying at times.   Time to chug the rest and skip out the door enthusiastically to plant bulbs.  

Commercial break

I am contemplating contacting the networks about making a new commercial.   It will feature me or some other better looking mom, doing wondrous, ponderous things such as.....du, du, du.......changing a diaper or.....putting the clothes in the drier.    It will be colorful and awesome with cutely decorated rooms and a beautiful garden which the awesome mom is weeding (or not) and then......at the end of the commercial break it will say......can you guess???????

My name is Martha Ingebretson and..... I'm.......a...... Lutheran.   This will stop all the prejudice against Lutherans I am sure.   All that crossing of themselves and such and living life.   We need to set the record straight.    I know that most people contemplate the weird behavior of Lutherans.  Yes.   You know they do. 

Haiku

Wasabi

Green scary
Brain tried to leave me
Smarter now

Comforting my shopping cart

After twenty years of carting babies around in shopping carts I have developed a very weird habit. When I do not have the baby with me, I catch myself comforting my groceries by pushing the shopping cart back and forth. It is....embarrassing. I was talking to Anna on the phone while at the local library book sale and noticed I was comforting my cart full of books. Ack! What must that look like to the bystander. I did start to laugh and told Anna what I had been doing. "Okay Mom", says daughter dear. Oh well, I am glad my groceries and purchases feel comfortable and non-stressed with me. This is a good thing. I am also sure I am not alone in this odd habit.

My Easter Shoes

Ha ha of the day. We were scrambling around trying to find everyone a pair of shoes to wear to church this evening and Benjamin couldn't find his shoes....thus the scrambling. I told him to just go in his socks. He looks up at me and asks, "Can I wear my Easter shoes???" ????? Easter shoes??? Then I remembered that I had gotten a pair of light weight summer shoes to wear to church. Argh. Easter shoes??!!!! The boy had not worn them since Easter Sunday as he thought they were just for wearing on Easter. My children are so literal. I am sure I must have said I bought him some new shoes to wear on Easter. How do I learn to speak in a way which will not be taken in Amelia Bedelia style??? So....now Benjamin has two pairs of shoes to chose from...if he can find them.