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.

Free

Free to a good home:  Bad Attitude (size medium)  Small spot of grumpy on the front, but not really noticeable unless you look at it in bright light.  Or any light. 
Condition: pretty shabby, but could be polished to restore its shine using a mixture of salt water, sand and sun.  Very little elbow grease required. 
Will deliver locally.

Yes, Virginia......

One of the many questions that tend to keep me up at night finally made it's way into conversation a couple of weekends ago. Completely out of the blue.
We were in the car, headed somewhere; the sweetest hubby was driving, little man was in the back seat and I - blissfully unaware that I'd have to make a huge decision in a few seconds - was in the front passenger seat.
The sweetest voice in the world piped up from the back, asking:

"Mom, is Santa Claus real?"

My stomach dropped. My eyes went wide. I turned my head slowly to the DH with a 'oh, crap, now what?' look. I tried to ignore the question. I tried to pretend I had misunderstood. Seconds felt like minutes, when finally, I said, "Why do you ask, baby?" (oh no, oh no, oh no!)

"Because, ****** told me at school, that Santa Claus isn't real." (name omitted to protect the innocent little creep that just about ruined my sweet baby's childhood fantasies......grrrrrr!!)

DH, at this point, asked me just who is this ****** kid? I told him he's a very sweet little boy in little man's class. I know his mom, she's super-nice - but, c'mon! They're 5!!! Even if you don't believe - don't go blabbering it to everybody!

So, here goes. I have to make a decision here - split-second, I might add - do I lie, and keep up the act; or go ahead and tell him the truth? Now, people, he's 5! He'll learn soon enough about all the bad things in life.
I decided to keep up the act. Let him (and me!) keep the magic for a little while longer. Oh, and yes, he knows the most important, true meaning of Christmas is Jesus' birth. But, Santa is a special little bit of lagniappe that I'm not willing to let go of. Yet.

So, I gave a tried and true politician-type answer..... er, non-answer.

I said, "Well, I believe in Santa. And Daddy, don't YOU believe in Santa?"

To which Daddy answered, "Absolutely!"

I said, "Didn't he bring you gifts this Christmas?"

Daddy then informed him that not everyone believes the same things that we do, and that's ok. We're not to judge what others believe.

Little man seemed ok with those answers and let the subject go. For now.

Now, I wait for the next questions. Whatever they may be.

Oh, and I've adopted this from a friend: If you don't believe, you don't receive.
(I believe, I believe!) :)

WAR EAGLE!!

Another episode in the "If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" chronicles.

Lunchtime today: walked my sweet self into Subway for a sammich - sporting my favorite Auburn scrubs. Could there be any better job in the world than nursing???? I mean, I get to wear my pjs to work!

Well, doncha know the first thing the 'sandwich artist' behind the counter says is "Auburn!?" (hmm...it's hard to get across in typing form the nasal, sarcastic tone he used). Then, "didn't you see the sign on the door?"*

*Excuse me here - now, normally, I'd just laugh it off - because every.stinking.time I wear my AU scrubs to work I have to deal with the oh, so original! comments from the Dawg faithful that I'm forced to work with. A few brave souls (patients) might pipe up and mention something about my choice of teams - just a few though; I guess they know I could be the one administering their sedation for their colonoscopy, so I suppose they don't want to take a chance on gettin' me all riled up. (sorry, guess my redneck is showing)

Sooo. Back to Subway. Today, I'd had my fill. I turned around and looked at the door he indicated and said, 'No, but I could just as easy turn around and walk right back out that door'. No smile. Didn't laugh it off this time. The poor guy didn't know what to say!

I just don't understand it. Here I am a paying customer, and you're gonna insult me? Yeah, yeah - I know - he was just kidding. But sheesh! It happens every.stinking.time!!! I don't have a lot of AU paraphernalia; but the sweetest hubby IS an AU grad, so we are kind of proud to wear the team colors, y'know? We don't go overboard with it by any means - generally, it's a 'whatever is clean' in the closet kind of thing - so for someone to say something about it each and every time we wear our favorite team's logo, it gets kind of old.

Oh and um....I'm not stupid. I made sure to watch the 'artist' at work when he made my sandwich. Like I could possibly withhold your sedation if you get me riled up - he could do some really nasty things to my sammich - I'm just sayin........{shudder}