My Kids

Everywhere we go, I get the comment, “You must have your hands full.”  Since I usually only have my younger two with me while the older two are in school, people have no idea how right they are!  Here are some recent pictures of my angels – they grow so fast and this is for relatives and people who haven’t seen them in awhile:

Christopher is a Cubs fan, of course!

Good thing I checked on Christopher during his “tummy time” – this is what I found and he wasn’t even making a peep!

Disney loves her Homer doll even though she calls him “SpongeBob”

Here are all 4 of them together: Disney is almost 2, Sammie is 4, Taylor is 8, and Christopher is 2½ months

Christopher doesn’t have the hang of holding his own bottle yet

Everyone says Sammie and Disney look like twins, years apart.  Sammie really wanted us to take this picture
of them holding her Samantha sign – no one had the heart to tell her it was backwards



The Question Phase – Already?

My daughter Disney is not yet 2 and has already entered the question phase – a time of life when a child asks questions about anything and everything.  It seems a little early for this; I don’t seem to remember her two older sisters entering the question phase until about 3½ or 4 years old.  Heck, at Disney’s age Samantha was busy painting with poop!

But as we know, all kids are different (thank goodness for that because we already have a Sammie), and so we welcome Disney’s transition into the question phase.  Since it’s just beginning, she doesn’t yet ask questions about how things work, but rather about where her favorite people are.  It’s really cute since she gets this little inquisitive look on her face and because she’s not even 2 yet, her questions aren’t very well formed.  We know what she means though, and try to answer the best we can.  Some of her favorite questions are:  “What Daddy doin’?”  “Where Taywer (translation: big sister Taylor) go?”  “What Sammie doin’?”

I guess most of her questions do revolve around the whereabouts of her loved ones…  an example of her super-sweet nature.  Disney truly cares about other people and she is such a sweet little girl – always saying please and thank you even when it’s not expected of her.  So this isn’t a full example of the questions phase – that title will be reserved for the sometimes difficult-to-answer questions that revolve around “why”?  Like…  Why is the sky blue?  Why does Sammie get more candy than I do?  Why can’t we have a kitty?  Why do I have to go to school?  Why is Mommy’s hair turning gray?

Disney’s inquisitive face:



Kid Rock, Really?

I just might have to start calling myself a Kid Rock fan…  ok, no not really, that’s going way too far.

It all started when I was able to catch a few minutes of country music radio – a rare treat for me because when I’m doing errands in my car every day, I’m usually forced to listen to Kidsongs, VeggieTales, or the like while the kids are watching the car dvd player.  But lately, I’ve been able to catch a few songs on country music radio…  I guess it’s because my youngest daughter has been refusing to nap at home during the day, therefore she can’t help herself from napping once we get in the car, giving me control of the car stereo, even if it is temporarily.  But anyway, country radio has been constantly playing a song that I really like – I heard it again the other day while my husband was getting a haircut, and that’s when I decided I needed to look it up, find out what it is and who sings it so I can get it for my own enjoyment.  Well, I looked it up, and what I found is that my new favorite “country” song is Kid Rock’s latest single called “All Summer Long”.  For those of you who don’t know, Kid Rock is not a country artist – not in my book, anyway…  Seems he’s been trying to cross over to country for a couple of years now however.  His duet with Sheryl Crow called “Picture” hit the top of the country charts a few years ago when it came out.  But Kid Rock is most famous for various tabloid fodder; including his relationship with Pamela Anderson and the public brawls he’s engaged in.  But I think Kid Rock’s normal style of music is hard-core.  There is a song called “Warrior” by him that is played before movies in the theater, and that song is very reminiscent of 80s heavy metal – I think that’s a taste of his usual musical style.

So why the switchover into country?  I have one guess – money.  It’s no secret that country music is the most popular music genre in the United States today.  Kid Rock’s new song doesn’t quite have that country sound, however, but I wouldn’t know how else to classify it.  It reminds me of late 70’s or early 80’s classic rock, ala Lynyrd Skynyrd – there is even a tribute to the song “Sweet Home Alabama” in “All Summer Long” – it mentions the song and even replicates its famous guitar lick.  But nowadays, I don’t know where a song such as this should be catagorized, and apparently the music industry felt the same way, so they stuck it in the country genre.  It’s a really great, feel-good, care-free, summery kind of song…  don’t know why they didn’t rush to get it released at the beginning of the summer.  But it’s here now, and I’m enjoying it, even if it is sung by Kid Rock.  I just wish he’d make up his mind about where he wants to be musically.  Being a country music fan, I despise “posers” and “crossovers” who try to take advantage of country music fans just because they’re seen as loyal and dumb.  The bait and switch didn’t work with me this time – I like the song, but knowing it’s Kid Rock did take a little out of it for me.  I have a big problem with crossovers – I don’t like accepting them into the country music family.  I feel that country music is something you either love or you hate, and if these crossovers weren’t already involved in country music, chances are they’ve hated it in the past and should not be allowed to crossover when the time or price is right.  You are either a country artist or you’re not.  Which is why it is to my dismay that this new Kid Rock song is so good.

But all things aside, check out “All Summer Long”, it’s worth a listen, and let’s hope Kid Rock doesn’t steal too much thunder away from the real country acts come time for the Country Music Awards that will be airing in November.  Judging solely by how much air time he’s getting on the radio, I think he has a shot to win some awards for this one – he’ll at least get a live performance.  I just hope he can behave himself.  Surprisingly, given the red-neck reputation of country music’s fan base, the annual Country Music Awards is not a place where there is usually scandalous behavior such as fighting or swearing, and let’s hope these fly-by-night country crossovers don’t ever bring it to that.



A Whole New World

During our community theater’s run of The Nerd, they designated one of the nights “80’s Night” since the play was set in 1985.  I enjoyed the opportunity to visit the local thrift stores with a mission – looking for components to complete my 80’s look.  2 thrift stores are within walking distance so I just packed up the little ones in the double stroller and off we went.  I found things with ease – a gaudy Mickey Mouse sweatshirt that I cut up to make it off-the-shoulder, a black lacy Madonna-like skirt, jelly shoes, hoop earrings, leggings, ankle socks…  I was ready to go!

And of course, what 80’s look is complete without makeup and lots of it?  I read a hint on a website about dressing for 80’s parties – “In the 80’s, we didn’t accessorize – we “excessorized” and LOVED it!”  So I braided my wet hair in the morning, and by evening when I took out the braids, I acheived the “crimped” hair look I was going for.  I pulled out the electric blue nail polish (though I ended up regretting that later since I forgot to buy nail polish remover and I was stuck with electric blue nail polish for a few days until I had the time to get to Walmart – OOPS), and I piled on the purple and blue eye shadow.  It was lots of fun to get dressed up like a goofball – I may consider being an 80’s time machine traveler for Halloween.  But anyway, while I was getting ready for 80’s night, I had a flock of admirers.  My 3 little girls aren’t used to me putting on makeup, dressing up, painting my nails, or spending lots of time on my hair (note to self – next time I dress 80’s, I need some Aquanet!) – I’m just not the kind of gal who does – or has the time to do, for that matter – these things regularly.  It was like a whole new world for them, and they gawked in awe as they watched me get ready.  My oldest kept running up to her room to look for jewelry to use – everyone wanted to help, which was like a whole new world for me.

80’s night was a few weeks ago, and the girls are still asking to have their nails painted and for us to do each other’s makeup, much to my husband’s dismay.  He’s never liked makeup and says he wants our girls to be at least 18 before they can wear it.  I’ve tried explaining to him that there is something innate in little girls that make them like dressing up and putting makeup on – it’s just how little girls are made.  Being a male, he doesn’t get it of course, and so I imagine we’ll have many a debate in this house once the girls get to the teenage years and want to wear makeup regularly.  For now, I don’t have a problem using it as a “toy” once in a while, as long as it’s supervised and I can guide my girls to having the right opinions about makeup, especially when it comes to self-esteem issues – makeup does not make you prettier, you do not NEED makeup, it can be harmful to your face if you use it incorrectly, etc.  So until they become teenagers, this is a way we can have fun together, and I also view it as an important bonding experience.  One of the things I remember doing with my sister the most while we were growing up is her doing my hair and makeup, and I don’t remember ever fighting while we were doing that.  Anyone who knows my girls realizes how much we need an activity that Taylor and Sammie can do together without fighting!  So if you see me walking around with a hideous makeup job someday, just remember that my face was probably painted by an 8, 4, or 2 year old!

**YOU ASKED FOR IT!!!**



Pedal To The Metal

Yes, a fun day indeed, if you read Jamiahsh’s blog, then you know what I’m talking about.  To get our minds off of certain medical dramas (not like House or Grey’s Anatomy or anything like that – our real-life medical dramas taking place right now are much worse than some crappy tv), we decided to have a day of fun.  It began with go-carting, which is always fun but even more so if you can fill up the track and drive with people you know – which we were able to do.  I like the place we went to because they don’t charge any extra if you take a kid along with you, and seeing as how we had a few nice adults who didn’t mind chauffering some little kids, all 3 of our daughters got to go around the track a bunch of times.  But I’m the dummy who forgot my camera, so I didn’t get a picture of my little almost 2-year-old in a go-cart like I wanted.  It’s funny because I had the camera with me, just forgot to use it, which should signal how scatter-brained I’ve been lately because of the worry and lack of sleep resulting from my husband’s as-yet-unidentified medical condition.  And while we’re on that subject, we won’t know anything until next week now, because they’ve ordered further tests for Thursday, and they won’t get the results back until next week.  But they’ve eliminated gallstones, so at least we know that much.  He blogged a little update here.

But anyway, enough tangents, back to the fun day.  After go-carting, we decided to practice in the batting cages for our upcoming annual theater softball game.  The batting cages reminded me how hilarious last year’s game was – I mean, theater people playing softball?  It was a riot!

After that, we went to a nice little restaurant we like on the river.  If you sit outside, you get to enjoy the beautiful weather, the view, and a game of cornhole while you wait for your food.  I like cornhole; if anyone has a set, we should bring it to the theater family fun day and play that along with softball…  Why is it called cornhole?  Is that a NW Ohio term for it?  They have that where I come from in Illinois too, but I don’t think they call it cornhole.  In case you aren’t from NW Ohio and you don’t know what I’m talking about, I’m referring to the game with the wooden ramps with holes in them…  you have 2 of these and station them about 15-20 feet apart with half of the team at each end; then you throw bean bags into the holes – hopefully.

After dinner, the kids fell apart (what else is new?  They’ve been acting HORRIBLY lately!), so we had to leave, but I hear the rest of the group went mini-golfing.  I was actually tempted to mini-golf earlier in the day but I knew the kids would drive me nuts because they get bored of it after about 6 holes.  So we left, thinking maybe the kids would fall asleep in the car, giving me and hubby a much-deserved and needed night alone together to watch a movie.  Didn’t happen.  And starting with the kids spazzing out at the restaurant about bees (and there weren’t that many – our almost 9-year-old is a wimp about certain things and her craziness got her sisters going – don’t you love how they chain-react to one another?  Hence the name of my blog), things went from bad to worse.

I’m going to blame Carol and Megan for this one, since they brought it up earlier in the day, but what a coincidence – we got pulled over on the way home.  So thanks Carol and Megan for jinxing us!!  Just kidding, of course it’s not your fault…  I guess poor Chris really got used to putting the pedal to the metal on those darn go-carts.  The state highway patrol officer who pulled us over had the personality of a housefly, and she wasn’t going to act like a human being and be thankful we weren’t drunk driving or even think about giving us a break on labor day, so our fun day ended up being pretty expensive when you include the $100 speeding ticket.  Our luck SUCKS lately, but if we can get the all-clear on my husband’s health, then I will stop complaining.

Oh yeah, so anyway, when we got home, our almost-2-year-old was the last one awake, and since she had only napped for about 10 minutes during the day, we thought we were almost home-free for a nice evening together – WRONG!  About 30 minutes into the movie, our oldest came down, asking for a snack.  No biggie, but “Did you wake your sister?” we asked her, panicked beyond belief because our 4-year-old has been a little hellian again lately.  She said she didn’t think she woke her up, but 5 minutes later, guess what happens?  Sammie comes down the stairs, and now we’re in the middle of an R rated movie with all 3 kids awake and downstairs.  So much for our peaceful early night, sigh.  We sent the oldest 2 upstairs, and that’s actually the last we heard from Sammie, believe it or not.  Disney, the youngest besides the baby (and he’s not old enough to cause any trouble yet, thank goodness!), got so OVER-tired that she started crying for about 45 minutes straight until she finally fell asleep.  But then Taylor, the oldest, must have come down the stairs at least 3 more times because she was worried about various bugs that were in her room and in the house, according to her anyway.  If this were still the age of the VCR, our movie would have been eaten by the VCR by now because of all the pausing and unpausing we were doing…  but ultimately, we just gave up anyway because I was falling asleep during the first part of the movie, and we could tell Taylor was going to be “bugging” us all night…  So we missed the end of No Escape – some crappy Ray Liotta action film from the 90’s.  I think it was crappy anyway, I really didn’t see much of it – let me know if it’s any good and maybe we’ll go back to it.

But for what it was worth, the day provided a nice destraction from the worries that have been plaguing us lately, so thanks to all who participated.  Now we just have to wait another week to find out more medical test results…  ugh, I hate the waiting!



Kids Write the Darndest Email Forwards

HOW DO YOU DECIDE WHO TO MARRY?
You got to find somebody who likes the same stuff. Like, if you like
sports, she should like it that you like sports, and she should keep the
chips and dip coming.


stuck with.
 

WHAT IS THE RIGHT AGE TO GET MARRIED?
Twenty-three is the best age because you know the person FOREVER by
then.
 
HOW CAN A STRANGER TELL IF TWO PEOPLE ARE MARRIED?
 You might have to guess, based on whether they seem to be yelling at the
same kids.
 
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOUR MOM AND DAD HAVE IN COMMON?

 
WHAT DO MOST PEOPLE DO ON A DATE?
 Dates are for having fun, and people should use them to get to know each
other. Even boys have something to say if you listen long enough.
 On the first date, they just tell each other lies and that Usually gets
them interested enough to go for a second date.
 
WHAT WOULD YOU DO ON A FIRST DATE THAT WAS TURNING SOUR?

and make sure they wrote about me in all the dead columns.
 
WHEN IS IT OKAY TO KISS SOMEONE?


that.
 The rule goes like this: If you kiss someone, then you should marry them

 
IS IT BETTER TO BE SINGLE OR MARRIED?

to clean up after them.
 

 
HOW WOULD YOU MAKE A MARRIAGE WORK?
Tell your wife that she looks pretty, even if she looks like a dump
truck.

18 Kids – Are They Crazy?

They don’t seem to be, they just like kids, I guess.  You might have heard of the Duggar family from Arkansas.  They are kind of like celebrites.  Their claim to fame?  Having 18 natural children.  No adoptees or fosters.  The 18 includes 2 sets of twins and one on the way; there are 7 girls and 11 boys – they don’t know the gender of the new baby yet.  Their story interests me because with 4 kids myself, I thought I had a lot of kids.  It’s interesting to me to see how they go about their daily lives with 20 people living in their house.  Their house is custom built, they actually built it themselves as a family project.  They have lots of things in their house that help organize their lives and make everything run more smoothly, for instance, they have 4 washers and 4 dryers in their laundry room and one communal family clothes closet where the clothes are sorted by size.  Their kitchen has 2 convection ovens, 2 microwaves, 2 warming drawers, 2 dishwashers, 2 sinks, and a fridge/freezer.  And that’s the small kitchen.  The industrial kitchen is outfitted with 4 ovens, 2 griddles, 4 freezers, 2 refrigerators, 2 sinks, a pizza oven, a deep fryer, and a popcorn machine.  They even have their own buffet line; that’s how they serve their food.  Each kid goes through the line and gets their own food, well, the ones who are old enough, anyway.   They also have a drink counter in their dining room with a fountain pop machine.

Even though they have all these things in their house that help to accomodate such a large family, it’s amazing to me that they can still function with all those kids.  The kids are home schooled and also take piano, violin, and harp lessons.  I think the key here is scheduling.  The family has a daily schedule that they follow which is supplemented with reward charts and checklists for each family member.  Each person has a jurisdiction within the house that they are responsible for cleaning during family cleaning time.  It sounds like a well-oiled machine, but I’m sure they run into their share of snags.  I just have so many questions about their situation, though, like how can a woman want to go through the birthing process 16 times (remember, 2 sets of twins)?  How is her body even able to carry and give birth to 18 children?  Is she addicted to pregnancy?  Do they have a money tree in their yard?  What is their grocery bill?  When do they have time for grocery shopping and who does it?  Do they have a vehicle that fits them all, or do they have to travel everywhere in a caravan?  Does Jim-Bob (the dad) work outside the home?  It’s kind of funny, isn’t it, that his name is Jim-Bob, he’s from the south, and he has 18 kids.  Talk about illustrating stereotypes. 

But seriously, they must be rich, or at least were rich before they had all those kids.  Not only would their grocery bill be outrageous, but they built their own large home and they need furniture to accomodate 20 people – that’s 19 beds alone!  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention that all the children’s names start with the letter j.  Well, anyway, I just thought I’d write a little about the lives of this interesting family.  If you want more information about them or want to look at pictures of them or their cool house, they have a pretty nice website.  They also make appearances on news shows frequently and had a reality show on the Discovery Channel that followed them as they built their house.  I wonder if they plan on sending all 18 kids to college?  And if all 18 share their parents’ views of contraception, they are going to have hundreds of grandchildren!



Back To School And Redirection

Today is the first day back to school (already?!?), and it’s really quiet around here.  I guess my oldest two are my loudest two, and we have reduced the traffic in the house by 50% since half the kids are now at school during the day.  Thank goodness for school; I’m enjoying myself already.  So far, I’ve gotten two loads of laundry done – folded, put away and everything, and I have somehow also found the time today to put away most of the clutter that’s been haunting our dining room table for the last week and a half.  I even got to work on my e-book a little bit, and it’s not even 1 o’clock!  And, the kids at school are learning stuff, getting exercise, and socailizing with their friends; they’re not vegged out in front of the tv or outside fighting in the wading pool.  Everyone wins!

While the oldest 2 kids are in school, I also have time to focus on my toddler, Disney, while her baby brother is napping.  Today, I got to sit on the floor and play puzzles with her; something we haven’t done together in months, almost a year because of my pregnancy and c-section.  And she was down for her nap by 12:30, which not only means some quality time together for me and baby Christopher, but also that my toddler should be to bed at a decent hour tonight.  Win-win!  While I was on the floor playing with my daughter, I was getting up to tend to the laundry and whatnot.  My daughter was following me around the house, and this is where my day becomes challenging – trying to keep our clingy almost 2-year-old out of my husband’s home office so he can work.  The home office isn’t  a room where he could close the door and utilize the out-of-sight-out-of-mind tactic.  The office is on the landing on our second floor, so if my toddler begins to head up the stairs or even looks up the stairs, she sees her best friend, Daddy, and it’s over.  She tantrums until he holds her, and he can’t get any work done.  Today she got upstairs and in the clutches of Daddy, so when I chased her down, of course she was upset.  But I used one of my favorite child-rearing techniques: redirection.  I taught her how to clean the toothpaste off the kids’ bathroom counter, which she happily did.  We went downstairs for a popsicle, puzzles, and Barney, and all was forgotten.  Wow.  I had totally forgotten about the magic of the redirection technique because the last 2-year-old I had in the house was our “spirited” child, Samantha.  Sammie was never re-directable.  She has always been so strong-willed that it’s literally impossible to re-direct the kid, let alone being able to trick her into helping around the house.  To this day, she will fight for her cause, whatever it may be, until she gets what she wants or she passes out.  And now that she’s older (she’s 4), the crying doesn’t last as long, but she will remember what it is she wanted and bring it up throughout the day (or week or month) until she gets it.  So I am actually enjoying Disney’s terrible twos a little bit – it’s so refreshing to have a kid who listens.  I know, she’s not yet 2 and things could get worse – so much worse.  But I’ve been there, done that, and after what Sammie put us through, no wonder Disney seems like a breeze.  And even if she does get completely crazy, soon she’ll be old enough to go to school, and we’ll start the terrible twos all over again with Christopher.  After 3 tantruming girls in their terrible twos, I’m curious to see what a boy will be like.  Probably no big deal, at least compared to Sammie 🙂



A Can Of Formula And A Pack Of Marlboros, Please

Yesterday we made a trip to our second-closest Walmart, and that location keeps their baby formula behind the counter, with the cigarettes.  I guess formula theft is rampant, at least at that Walmart location.  The cashier said something about it being used to make drugs, but I don’t know if that’s just her own hypothesis or if it’s true, but it doesn’t really make sense to me.  Whatever the reason, it’s so much more inconvenient for us regular shoppers.  Not only do I have to remember to get the formula on the way out, but we have to stand in a special line since only the one checkout lane has the formula.  Then you have to be clear on which kind you want, and you have to make sure the cashier knows what you’re talking about because there are at least 10 varieties.  It would stink to come home and find that you were given the wrong kind or had forgotten the formula altogether, which did happen to me last time I shopped at that Walmart location.  Anyone who has or has had little kids can understand how crazy kids can get in the checkout line.  Not only is it boring (especially at Walmart, where it often takes forever and a day also), but they’re nice enough to stock both sides of the aisle with plenty of tempting goodies for kids, conveniently all at eye level.  So the kids often are going crazy in the checkout line, and now the weary parent is expected to remember they still need their formula (and probably cigarettes, the way the shopping trip is going!) and to make sure they get the right kind of formula.  It’s a stupid set-up, and I really hope they don’t implement this change at my local Walmart where I do most of my shopping.  I have a suggestion that would make things a wee bit easier if they insist on keeping the formula behind the counter.  In the baby section of the store, have papers with bar codes on them corresponding to the different types of formulas.  That way, we can just grab the slip we need and put it in our cart, eliminating the need for remembering to get the formula later or confusion with the cashier.  This system works well when you buy large items, like swingsets, so why not try it with formula?

And while we got on the subject of drugs with the cashier, she told us an interesting tidbit about Walmart’s cash registers.  It seems they are trained to recognize the combination of supplies one needs to create a meth lab.  If someone buys this combination of items, the register will alert the employee.  Now I’m as opposed to meth labs as the next person, and I certainly don’t want them in my neighborhood, but when the Walmart cash register is programmed to tell you what not to buy…  I think that’s a little too much.  Big brother, here we come…



We’ve Got To Get Away… We’ve Got To Run Away!

This post is titled after a line from my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz.  In case you live in a hole or you’re Amish, the movie is about a girl named Dorothy who runs away and gets swept into a mystical land.  Of course, if you’re Amish, I don’t know why you’re reading my blog, but I’m glad you are.  But the reason I’m writing this is that it’s happened – we’ve had our first threat of running away from a kid.  For those of you who know our family, you get only one guess as to who it was.  Got your guess?  Ok, it was Samantha – SURPRISE!  It’s funny because my husband and I were just discussing this a few days ago.  We talked about how seemingly every little kid plans to run away at one time or another.  We also talked about how if any of our kids were going to run away, we both thought it would be Samantha (she’s 4, by the way, if you don’t know us, and she’s always been a firecracker, even as far back as her womb-dwelling days).  And now here we are, mere days later, and she brings it up.  She didn’t attempt it or say it out of anger; what happened is this:  She was bouncing on our bouncing zebra toy, which actually belongs to her little sister, Disney.  Since Disney is almost 2, seeing Samantha on the bouncing zebra made her suddenly decide that she wanted to play on it, of course.  So I asked Sammie to give Disney a turn, and she refused.  I started threatening things like making her take a nap, time-out, and taking toys away, and for each punishment, she had an answer.

“I’m going to have to make you take a nap then.” was met with  “I won’t sleep.”

“Then I’ll have to take away one of your toys.” was followed by “Then I’ll run away.”

Well, the situation was resolved when Disney asked for a popsicle.  I was more than happy to give her one because she is being SO good today; polar opposite of the hellish day she made for me yesterday.  The new popsicles I bought today weren’t frozen yet, and all we had was some random soccer ball popsicle I found in the freezer.  I gave it to her, totally over-emphasizing what a good girl she’s been today so hopefully she’ll get the message and stay this way.  But I gave it to her knowing we might have a problem when I didn’t have any for the other kids, which is a golden rule of parenting that must not be broken:  if you have 2 kids, obtain things and give them out in twos.  If you have 3 kids, you must always have 3 treats, toys, what have you.  Whatever it is, there always has to be one per kid – I call this the ‘separate but equal law of parenting’.  So today I broke the separate but equal law, and guess what I got in return?  A tantrum, of course.  I explained to Sammie that Disney got the popsicle because she was being good, and that Sammie was not being good.  She said, “But I’m being good now!”  And I agreed, but I also explained that I had said she would be punished for not doing as I said by sharing with her sister and so this was her punishment.  She threw a tantrum, but got over it rather quickly.  I think she might have actually learned a lesson.

But back to the running away.  I think every kid tries it or at least thinks about it.  But of course, since they’re kids, the plans are never very well thought out.  Like everyone, I tried it to, and my plan was packing a can of spaghettios in a suitcase.  I was thinking ahead about being hungry, but of course I hadn’t planned where I would be going or even how I was going to open that can of spaghettios.  I don’t even remember what prompted my decision to run away, which says something about how insignificant my parents’ wronging me really was.  One time when my sister wanted to run away, she went so far as to call our aunt to come pick her up – luckily my aunt called my mom to double-check, but at least my sister had a plan.  Most kids who think about running away don’t have a good solid plan, and many of them realize this before they actually leave the house.  Let’s hope we are lucky enough to have that happen with Samantha if she decides to follow through on her threat.