The following is an email my hilarious sister sent to our mother today in response to my mom asking her about her date last night.  Consider it a Happy Friday present.  Enjoy.

Hi Mom,
I am dead and lying in a ditch because Kansas abducted me. Just kidding. We eloped. He doesn't have a job or a place to live, so I am letting him stay with me for awhile until he kicks his meth habit and gains some weight back. I hope his pit bulls like my cats!
Love Melissa
PS I'll write more later.



You're welcome.

Regarding T-Ball

The boys have ventured into the unknown this year.  Yup, team sports.  Or, sports at all, for that matter.  Given that approximately half of their DNA comes from yours truly, who could not coordinate her way out of a paper bag, they are, well, athletically challenged.

Enter the perfect situation.  Our good friends have asked our boys to join their T-ball team.  The boys know most of the players, they can be on the same team, and the coach is a wonderful friend of ours.  I also teach their son in my preschool class.  See?  Perfectly perfect.

Matty misses the birthday cut-off by a month and a half, but I ask my friend and she says that it will be fine.  Just register them ,and even though Matty is young, just tell the T-ball people that we have talked with Coach and he said it would be OK.  So I do.

Two weeks later, we get a call.  "Yes, Mr. Ferrario.  This is Cynthia from the baseball league.  We just wanted to let you know that Matty's case went before the board, and the board voted to allow him to play even though he is outside the age limit.  Coach Martin vouched for his abilities."

WHAT?!??!  He did what?  He put his name on the line for this guy?  Dear me. 

I immediately called my friend and said that this simply won't do.  I can not have Coach's reputation in the community completely trashed.  Do not vouch for his abilities!  What abilities?  He doesn't even have pants!

Well, Coach laughed and said it would all be fine.  But that was before practice started.

Since then, Matty has come down dressed and ready for his first practice.  Wearing two bracelets.  Last night, he went down to the garage to find a shovel to dig a big hole so the coaches could fall in it as they were racing at the end of practice.  And he was very mad at me for putting his pajamas on under his clothes last night in an attempt to keep him warm.  He wanted his PJ's on the outside, so that all of his friends could see, "that they glow in the dark."  How's that for abilities?  Glad to know that his head's really in the game.

Then, as big brother was sauntering his way to home plate to bat, Coach told him to hustle.  Mitch continued to lolly gag.  When he got back to the dugout  (or, "digout" as it is called by our resident Babe Ruth's), I asked him what it meant when Coach said to hustle.  I informed him it meant to run, Run, RUN!  "Oh, you mean 'hustle' means run, like, in Spanish or somethin'?

Strike Three. 

Did You Ever Know That You're My Hero?

Here is a list of people who are placed on a pedestal in our home by a five-year-old boy:

Garbage men, jumbo jet pilots, Red Robin Employees, Ronald Reagan (for providing funding for the first space station), and this guy.

Click here to view these pictures larger

A big shout out to this Lowe's employee for letting my boy select the red paint color for his barn that he just built out of wood,  and letting him go behind the counter into the Employees Only section and push the buttons on the computer and the paint mixing machine.  You are the wind beneath his wings.

Space Cadet

Mitch loves everything Space.  Space rockets.  Planets.  Comets.  Space shuttles.

Much to his dismay, the space shuttle is scheduled for only 4 more flights until the program is discontinued.  When we told him this, he was incensed and he asked who nixed it.  So we told him.

So...armed with a bit of information, and a passion about space, this is what ensued...


Mitch:  "Mom,  my reading buddy (fourth grade girl who comes to read with the kindergarten kids) said that her parents voted for Barack Obama.  I told her that I guess that they don't like space shuttles very much!"

On Love...

Love takes many forms.  It might be expressed in a smile.  Or a wink.  Or a touching of hands.  Or a full-up John Deere Crawler Tracked Tractor Valentine Box of Justice.  It took some thinkin', but we did it.  I love you, Mitch.

Blizzard, 2010!

Perhaps in the past, I may have mocked this state for the scale of their emergency response to weather events that never occur.  Like last year when they cancelled school a full 24 hours in advance on the threat that there might be a dusting of snow.  Not one flake, yet the city was completely shut down.  The boys and I drove to Charleston and went to the Aquarium.

Well, this time, it came to pass.  The weathermen here are positively giddy.  Mitch stated, "This is as much snow as in Michigan!"

Turns out there has not been this much snow here since 1971.  Cool!

So, what do we do in the snow?  Play!

Use working machines!

Make snow angels!

Climb on a ladder!?!  Don't ask.

Dear Lego Club, Jr. Magazine,

Below, please find the picture that I recently submitted to your publication.  It is my 5-year-old son, Mitch, and his model for the Lego Club Jr. Building Contest.  The theme was to build something that firefighters could use to get their job done.

While I can not comment as to why he chose to make that particular face for the photo, I can comment on the amount of time and thought that went into the making of his vehicle. You see, it is a fire truck, complete with crawler tracks and heavy on the wonky ladders.  Therefore, the firefighters can get into places "that regular fire trucks can't get to, like swamps and mud and stuff.  It also has a fire rescue boat."

As for the various gadgets and hoses, they all have a purpose.  While I am a girl and do not posess the  chromosomes necessary to identify each, Mitch was muttering words like "radiator belt," and "electrical supply"  as he was happily hooking them all up.  I hope that this helps clarify his entry.

Also, while my husband and I really do enjoy playing the game of "HA HA HA!  Guess Which Ones of These Models Were Actually Built by Children!" while looking at the contest winners in your magazine, we would prefer it if you followed your own rules of :  This contest is open to members ages 6 and under only."  Sorry, perfectionist moms and dads.  You may need to sit this one out.

So, just think...next time the swamp is on fire, I know the perfect vehicle for the job.

Sincerely,

Rachel F.

Mother of Boys

On sickness...

Well, I had a nagging feeling in my throat Saturday night, and then woke up a few hours later with body aches, a throat on fire, and chills like I was in the Arctic circle.  I knew it....Strep Throat. 

Mike had to work yesterday, so I spent most of the day with the boys lying on the couch in the fetal position and trying valiantly to get someone to write me a script for a Z-pac (but failing miserably).  There may or may not have been a moan heard a time or two.  But I was good.  I sent Mike to his weekly hockey game after work, even.  But by the time he got home, I was beyond miserable.  I mean, I didn't even touch a vacuum cleaner in over 12 hours, so Mike knew it was bad.  He found me an urgent care clinic miles away, and I headed there.  Came home two hours later with some anti-biotics, and through the miracles of Tylenol and Motrin (hang in there, liver) I am functioning.  Mike has been taking care of everything around the house.  He made the carpool run to school this morning.  Made Mitch's lunch.  Everything.

Matty has had a rash on his face for a week and a runny nose.  Mike took him to the doctor this morning.  Also Strep.  But he is handling it WAY better than his mama.  It hits adults worse, right?

So, I am now back in action fully.  The coddling has stopped.  I have been shown up by a three year old.  No more lying around.  No more moaning. Time to vacuum.

Mike dropped off Matty's script this morning, and I just took Matty to go pick it up.  I gave him his first dose of the pink stuff.  He likes the pink stuff.  He really does, but he balked at it this time.  Big time.  There was a slight wrestling match, in which I was yelling things like, "Swallow it!  All of it!  Do not spit it out, or I swear I will..."  You get the idea.  Then the phone rings.  Here is the pharmacist.

Pharmacist:  "Ma'am.  Could you please check the bottles of the antibiotic I just mixed up for you to see if one bottle is thicker than the other.  I think I only put in half the water I was 'sposed to after the one bottle done busted on me."

Me:  "WHAT?  Yes, one bottle is much thicker, and I just gave it to my little boy!"

Pharamcist:  "Oh, it should be fine, ma'am.  Just bring it by sometime and I'll put some more water in it.  He might just get an upset stomach or somethin' but he should be fine."

Oh, good to know we are in good hands.  Time to vacuum.

I'm Not Saying....

Here is the hotel bill from when Mike went TDY.  Hey, Visa!  That's a bit rude, don't you think?!?

Parenting Headscratcher...

Sometimes, your kids just don't make sense.  Often, I try to make sense of their actions or behaviors, try to teach them, blah blah blah.  I am not touching this one with a ten foot pole.  I don't really want to know what exactly was going on in his brain.

Matty was violently ill all day Saturday.  Throwing up every fifteen minutes.  Couldn't keep anything down, and Mike and I were on "fever watch" lest he experience another seizure and earn himself a trip to the ER.

He seemd MUCH improved yesterday, and pretty much back to normal this morning, so we headed to school.

I dropped him off without incident, but they came to get me forty-five minutes later saying that he had been crying the entire time and was beside himself.  They had never seen him like this!  He needed me, and they were all scrambling downstairs to try to find a sub who could come in last minute and take over, as I was clearly heading home with a sick child.  I ran downstairs, he saw me and said, "I have to go potty!"  Within two minutes, he was sitting on the potty, laughing and calling to me, "Mommy!  My poo-poo looks like a dolphin today!!"

Back to class he went.  He was fine after that.  I don't even want to know.

This story, brought to you by THIS guy-

PS-  For John and Sandy, I found him upstairs the other day playing with this.  "Mommy, this is my racecar I made!  It's Jimmy Johnson.  See, a 4 and an 8!"  Way to go, World's Most Unlikely Nascar Fans!  It's rubbing off!