5/20-5/26

Free Slurpee Day

Wednesday, 7-11 was giving away 7.11 oz Slurpees from 11 am-7 pm.  Since we're a fun loving, cheap family, we had to indulge in a bit of sweet tastiness.  It's a good thing 7-11 is close to home because it took me three trips to get everyone their Slurpee.  I picked up Elizabeth from her reading class at 9:30 and drove over only to learn the deal didn't start until 11.  We brought Isaac to his government class at 2:00 and stopped on the way for slurps.  Once Miriam and William got home from school, the first thing they asked me was, "Is it time for Slurpees now?"  Within 15 minutes, it was time to pick up Anastaya and Isaac from their respective schools and make my last trip to 7-11.  On the way to get everyone, Miriam asked how Jacob was going to get his free Slurpee and if he was going with us.  I told her he was at work so we wouldn't be seeing him.  We got to 7-11 and everyone went in to get their treat.  Miriam came out shaking her finger at me, "You were wrong mom!  Jacob is here!"

Jacob works for a day care that's just down the street from 7-11.  He'd taken nine children on a field trip to get their slurpees, even though it was pouring down rain.  I was waiting in the car when he came out with the children.  I had to smile when I saw one of the little boys who looked just like Jacob had at 5 years old, (caramel colored skin, thin curly hair), start to throw a fit.  I laughed to myself that he must not have liked the flavor of Slurpee he'd gotten.  Jacob tried to reason with him but in the end, they walked back to the day care with one unhappy boy.  I felt like Jacob was getting a chance to try to parent a mini Jacob, almost like he'd gone back in time!

Love and Logic
I don't know if you're familiar with the "Love and Logic" parenting method.  The basic premise of the parenting technique is to let the children experience the consequences of their choices.  Another important part is to not argue with your children, just keep repeating yourself, they call it "going brain dead".  We've tried it on all our children and it only works on one, Anastaya.  Love and Logic drives her crazy!  When she wants to fight, she wants to argue.  When we go brain dead, she gets more and more upset.  The worst thing we can do is let her win an argument.

The other day she was mad about having to do her chores.  She was stomping around, rolling her eyes, muttering under her breathe and slamming things around as she cleaned up.  We asked her to get a better attitude but it wasn't happening.  Dode finally said, "You're right, we've asked you to do something that's just too hard.  Go ahead and take a break, we'll do your chores for you."  That was NOT what she wanted to  hear, "But, I want to do my chores!" she cried.  "No, it's really OK, go take a break, we've got this."  "You're making me feel like the worse person in the world."  "You're not letting me do my chores!"  Dode went brain dead and kept repeating, "You're right, the chores are too hard, we'll take care of them".  He started doing her chores while she followed him around, begging and arguing about why she should be allowed to do her chores.  Isaac saw what was happening and since brothers seem to love nothing more than driving their sisters crazy, he started doing her chores too.  To hear the pleading that went on, you'd think we'd taken away a privilege.  This technique would never work with Jacob or Isaac, if we told them they didn't need to do their chores when they're complaining about them, they'd say "Score!" and happily be off doing something else.  After that night, chores have been a lot smoother for Anastaya.  Love and Logic worked its magic.

Thursday night
Thursday night, Dode was a real super dad.  He started the evening by working on a project with Isaac.  It's called, "The most useless box in the world."  You can see it in action here.  I want them to build it for me for day camp.  They're using plans from Make Magazine to build it.  They've run into a problem with a gear box that's too wimpy to do what it needs to.  Once they got to a dead end, he switched projects and built an airplane with Elizabeth.  It took them several hours to put it together because Dode was letting Elizabeth do a lot of the work.  Once they got it finished, she started flying it around.  She's tried everywhere she can think of: the lawn, the driveway, the 2nd story deck, while traveling down the zip line, from the back of the moving motorcycle, and from the play house gazebo.

It's powered by a rubber band driven propeller.

launching from her favorite spot

Busy Saturday
Dode's list:
Move Dorffs (a family from church)
Fix Dishwasher
Work on his RC Airplane
Put up Pool
Work on a bike Janice picked up at a garage sale for $5
Retrieve zip line bridge which was swept downstream in the winter floods
Mow the lawn
Repair clogged washing machine

My list:

Walk 3 1/2 miles with girls

Bring treats to moving party
Paint laundry room door
Rototill flower garden
Weed garden by hand after rototiller breaks down
Three loads laundry
Make birthday cake for my mom

Lest you worry about the children, they had a full day too:
Walk 3 1/2 miles with mom (girls only)
Help with the move (all six kids + Big Isaac)
Play in pool as it fills with water
Ride motorcycles and leave lots of mud in the driveway
Use the zip lines
Walk over to Safeway to take advantage of sale on Frapachinos (girls only)
Mow/weed whack the tall grass to make better motorcycle trails
Help retrieve zip line bridge

I didn't get photos of much of the action, just two things.

Working on the dishwasher, the wires inside were melted and had to be trimmed and soldered one by one.  Janice showed up part way through the day and asked Dode if he not only had to influence Isaac's interests (mountain biking, skiing, tinkering), but also had to influence his clothing choices!  They're both wearing button down shirts.

A moving casualty.  Big Isaac got tangled up in a dresser as it was heading down the stairs.

He ended up putting his face through a banister.  Ouch!

After all the activity on Saturday, I'm sure glad Sunday is a day of rest for us all!

Celebrating my mom's birthday
Sunday evening, we were able to celebrate my mom's birthday with family, even my mom's brother Mike who lives in California.  It was a fun evening with lots of lively conversation and reminiscing about growing up together.  Mike said he had to hear the story again of a spider monkey my mom had as a pet as a teenager.  You'd never know my solid dependable mom used to be a crazy teenager with a monkey.  His name was Keiko.

 our group

back row: Jacob, Dode, Isaac, Big Isaac, Mike (my mom's brother, seven years older than me)

2nd row: Matthew (my brother), Becky (Matthew's girlfriend), Me, Stan (my Grandpa whose legal name is Helmut), Greg (my step-dad), Ramirez (most spoiled pug ever!), Boma (my mom), Elizabeth

3rd row: Gabriel (my nephew), Miriam, William, Anastaya

My favorite outtake.  What I don't remember is was what was so funny but I love the different expressions!

 getting ready for the 1st shot, everybody doing their own thing

This was my favorite photo until I noticed one problem, thanks Jacob!

Dode even put my grandpa to work looking at why our water cooler doesn't get our water very cold.  My grandpa made his living in heating and refrigeration so he was going to an expert.  I was so impressed when I was a child because once my grandpa even flew to Bangkok to put in a heating/cooling system.  I didn't  know anyone else as a child who had a grandpa who traveled half way around the world to work!

While he was here, he mentioned that when he starts fires in his wood stove to heat his home, he uses a lot of charcoal and lighter fluid to get it going.  I told him that I had a perfect solution for him, waxed cardboard boxes.  Now that we use them for our wood stove, we don't even use kindling anymore!  Just waxed cardboard and full sized firewood logs and we have a fire.  We have an unlimited supply since we get more every other week at the produce co-op.  We sent him home with a box.  Hopefully he'll like using it and I'll have another place to get rid of them at because right now, we get too many.

In the "shoulder season" it's often not cold enough for a fire but the house is still chilly.  We use a propane heater to take the chill off.  Miriam is like a cat in front of it, stretched out in the heat, listening to a book on tape and snacking on cereal (scattered around her in the photo).