What will keep a wild out-of-control active 2-year-old entertained and safe for the duration of a high school football game? What color is the opposing team so that I don’t accidentally dress the children in the wrong color? What can we feed everyone quickly?

“It means, no Evan.”

Edu-Finance Carpal Paralysis: When the bank account causes the writing hand to become incapable of writing any more checks to schools, school bands or school PTO’s.

Noah’s supply list this year requested blue, black and red pens. Based on the papers he has brought home so far, the colors were to make his dragons, knights and medieval weapon drawings more colorful. Blood is so much more effective in color. His actual school work has all been done in pencil. After less than a week of school, his pens were redesigned so that only Noah knows what color ink is in each pen. In addition to his extra-curricular art and school supply mangling, he is also reading a Redwall book a day. The child scores off the chart on his standardized testing, but wastes his school time. I would do anything to have just one teacher find a way to capture his attention. We’re almost out of Redwall books.

Noah: “Where is it?”
Sarah: “Is that all? Can I go back to bed yet?”
Tommy: “Cool. Can I go play WoW now?”
Doug: insert long scientific lecture that sounded like Charlie Brown’s teacher here

I don’t know why, but the door to the closet in the living room has always looked like the perfect place for art and letters to my children. Every time Evan finds a writing implement, he aims for that door. I have magic erasered crayon, pen, pencil, marker and eye liner off that door. Finally, I decided we were fighting a losing battle. I told Doug I wanted the door painted in chalkboard paint. Yes, I broke my “no new home improvement projects until you finish one of the incomplete ones” rule. Doug spent a grand total of fifteen minutes painting the door and I love it! This picture shows the backpacks and piles of clothes ready for the morning chaos. Now I need to work in some shelves to get the children’s clothes and bags off of the dirty floor.

The children reacted to the door.
Amy: “Evan drew on the new door. He’s a bad boy.”
Tommy: “Evan did it again Mom.”
Noah: “Hey, that’s cool. Can I have one in my room?”
Sarah: “Whose idea was that?”

Kindergarten homework is not compatible with online media users. Maybe I could use some old magazines from a nursing home. “A is for arthritis.” Or a doctor’s office. “A is for Aleve.” My mother works for Waste Connections, but they aren’t allowed to take anything from the trash because that would be stealing. Magazines from the trash would probably be covered in coffee grounds and eggshells anyway. We could just print pictures for the alphabet pages, but that takes away from the purpose of the assignment. Maybe I should sign up for one of those sneaky “free trial” subscriptions and then return the two hundred subscription canceled cards before I am billed for the rest of the subscription. Some clever parent should offer a free magazine to the parents of kindergarteners with the promise that all the letters of the alphabet will have nouns pictured in the ads somewhere in the magazine. “A is for clever advertising.”

After an adolescence that included a period of seeing almost every movie on the big screen, I now go months and years between visits to the theater. Yesterday I went to see a movie TWICE! It was wonderful. First, my mother took Sarah and I to see “Hairspray“. If you don’t spend at least part of Hairspray grinning and/or tapping your foot, you need to up your dosage. Funny, colorful and worth owning. I loved the teenagers in front of us who copied all the dance moves without leaving their seats. I am curious whether the mothers attending with their elementary aged daughters just assumed their children wouldn’t understand all the sexual innuendo or if they themselves are that clueless?

Movie number two was courtesy of Blingo and my brother’s good luck. Doug and I went out for a frugal anniversary movie. The benefit of not being able to afford popcorn and drinks was that neither of us had to run to the restroom in the middle of the movie. We went to see Superbad and laughed, laughed, laughed. It is completely raunchy, but hysterically funny. I knew people like these characters in high school and college. I felt that panic of knowing you were someplace you didn’t belong. I knew guys who had the same style of cartooning. This one we won’t buy on DVD. It is absolutely for adults only.