Maxine's Mystic Revelers*

Good Monday Morning!  Spent the weekend on the Gulf Coast for what has become our family's annual Mardi Gras trip - and boy, we were paraded out by the time Sunday rolled around!  It's so nice to get together with the extended family for a time - lots of laughter, food, and definitely noise!  We are one loud group!  Just ask the neighbors!  Ahem.

Brought home bags full (literally) of cheap Mardi Gras stuff - beads, stuffed animals, plastic crabs, candy, Moon Pies, cups, dubloons, etc etc.   The little man wanted to take some beads to his classmates this morning, so I counted out 40 strands of the multicolored beads, explained to him that he would be able to give each friend 2 strands and that he needed to make sure it would be ok with his teacher before he started passing them around.  I sent a note with him, addressed to her, regarding the beads.  I hope he's able to give them out without causing too much of a ruckus in the classroom.  I threatened told him absolutely no throwing of beads in the classroom!!!  
I hope he listened. 

Happy Mardi Gras, everybody! 



*MMR - our 'Offical' Krewe name.  :)

of chivalry and oral hygeine



While visiting (and enjoying every minute of it!) a friend's blog this morning, I came across a sweet post she wrote about her Gentleman-in-Training, Jonathan.  It reminded me of my little man and his first demonstrations of chivalry yesterday.

We were leaving for church; just the two of us -  Greg had gone earlier; and, as usual, we were running late.  Most of the conversation consisted of:  "hurry up....go brush your teeth!....why aren't you dressed?......shoes?...where are your shoes?.....no, you can't take your DS to church.....did you brush your teeth?....please brush your teeth!......did you brush all of your teeth?.....let's go....let's goooo!"   You know, a typical Sunday morning. 

I grabbed my purse, keys, etc.  Ben got his little bag that holds his Bible, and a straw.  Yes, a drinking straw.  I don't know why, he just did.  Into his mouth it goes.  (maybe I should afix a brush to it so I don't have to remind him forty times to brush his teeth)

As we walked out to the car, he's his usual chatterbox self; but as we made our way around the front of the car, he paused at my door, shifted his bag to his other shoulder, and opened the car door for me!  Then he proceeded to his door, stopped and smiled at me - complete with the straw sticking out of the corner of his mouth.  What a gentleman!  I gave him a quick squeeze, kiss and thank you, snatched the straw out of his mouth, and away we went to church. 

When we got there, we gathered our things and walked (somewhat) together to the door.  Reminders of: don't run in the hall, don't forget to give your tithe envelope to your teacher, be good in class, etc.  We get almost to the door, when my little gentleman rushes ahead, opens the door and holds it for me!  Another quick hug and kiss for my sweet boy - who is immensely proud of himself, by the way. 

Looking back over yesterday morning, after typing this out;  I see that an awful lot of the morning was spent with me saying "don't do this...don't do that....behave....remember not to...."   I should temper my reminders with a little more praise.  He didn't have to be told to open the doors for me, he just did it, out of the kindness of his heart.  All the correction and rushing and do this! don't do that!....was it needed?  Is that what he's going to remember?  Mama was always harping on me to do something or other? 
He was just being himself, a little boy.  I wouldn't want it any other way.

And besides, these baby teeth are all gonna fall out anyway, right?


Love is.....






  • changing the oil in my car...
  • taking the garbage out that I leave sitting by the door - 8 steps away from the garbage can...
  • sweeping up packing peanuts in the middle of the night because you said you'd clean up the mess...
  • buying Valentine's cards for me from you and our little man...
  • building a fire because "I'm cold" is something you hear repeatedly - AND we can roast marshmallows...then, making the perfect marshmallow for yourself...
  • going to work every day for our family...
  • our little family...
  • taking care of things...
  • never giving up on me...
  • sentimental...
  • thoughtful...
  • sweet...
  • funny...
  • sometimes stressed-out...
  • never forgotten...
  • always calling on the way home from work...
  • insisting on date nights...
  • a wonderful Daddy to our son...
  • comfortable...
  • for always...
Love is: You....and so much more.

Happy Valentine's Day to my sweetie.  I love you.


Five + One = Six




I'm learning.  Slowly, it seems, but I'm learning.  I chose to not make a comment the other day when every fiber of my being wanted to!  We'd been working on little man's 100th day of school t-shirt project; we'd discussed what he wanted to decorate his t-shirt with, and we made the trip into town to Michael's to get the things.


His decorations?  Balls.  100 of them:  baseballs, footballs, soccer balls, and basketballs.  His favorites. 


As we stood in the aisle, I tried to use the occasion as a 'teaching moment'.   (The balls were actually stickers, probably made for scrapbookers, but I figured they would stick to a t-shirt well enough to work...maybe not for long-term use, but they'd last through the day!)
The stickers come packaged in a cellophane sleeve in groups of 5, so I helped him count out 100.  He can count to 100 easily, but I wanted to help him do it by 5s, and then (making it quicker for me) 25s.   I showed him that 25 + 25 + 25 + 25 = 100.   We went over it several times.  And by, "we went over it several times", I mean:  I went over it several times.....to his lack of interest.  Next, after many many minutes of arguing and whining discussion, we decided on a black t-shirt for the ball stickers.  I paid for the items and off we went. 

We spent a good 45 minutes a couple of nights later working on the project.  More arguing and whining discussion about how the items should be placed on the t-shirt - finally, we grouped them in the simplest of ways - chaotically: no specific pattern...completely random. There were balls everywhere!   It actually turned out pretty cute, even if it was a little harum-scarum.
Sent the t-shirt and the little man off to school the next day, hoping for a good grade for our his project.

That afternoon on the ride home from school is where I had my little lesson on keeping my mouth shut.  I asked the little man how his presentation went (oh yeah, forgot to tell ya they had to "present" their work....explaining how they'd come to choose their objects, and how they'd grouped their objects on the shirt.  I'm sure that was entertaining.)
He told me it went "good", but he'd had too many balls on his shirt; the teacher counted them and he'd had 105.  I was immediately on the defensive, because I knew I was right and she was wrong....I mean, we counted the wrappers over and over and over!  Remember my 'teaching moment'???  But for some reason, I kept my mouth shut.  We got home from school, he parked himself in front of the tv, I went to quietly dig through the garbage.  

I found the cellophane wrappers that had held the stickers and sure enough, for whatever reason, the basketballs were packaged in groups of 6.  Why?  I have no idea.  But I missed it.  Completely.   And because I missed it, I never even thought of counting the stupid balls as we stuck them to the t-shirt.  Because of my mistake, he probably won't get the best grade he could have gotten. 

Now, did I come clean?  To him, yes.  I told him I'd missed the fact that the basketballs had more than 5 in the package.  

To his teacher?  No.  Maybe I should have, I don't know.  It was supposed to be his project.  I'm a rotten mom - I let the 6 year old take the heat.  Would it have done any good to tell?  I don't know.   

The kid?  Completely unfazed by the whole thing.

Me?  Going back to elementary math class.