It’s been warming up a little, so nice to see the sun and think it feels warm! When we went to preschool this morning it was still overcast and I mentioned to the kids that I hoped the sun came out later.

When we left the house to pick up the girly at lunchtime, my littlest noticed the sun had come up. This lead to the following exchange -

“Look, the sun is up. It is done eating breakfast.”

“Oh, is that why it wasn’t out before?”

“Yeah, it was eating waffles and bananas.”

“Is that what the sun has for breakfast?”

“And juice. Waffles and bananas and juice.”

Who could possibly argue with that?

I’m not a huge fan of fast food. There is nothing I want to eat at most of those places, but I have a weakness for Burger King. However, they are quickly moving themselves onto my do not eat there list. (And before you email me telling me the 100s of reasons I shouldn’t eat there, don’t bother, I already know.) Why?

Well, first they changed their kids’ meals from applesauce to apple “fries”. Apple “fries” are apples sliced like french fries with enough preservatives in them to keep them from turning brown. They come with a caramel packet (like a ketchup packet) only stickier. What a mess. And my kids, especially the youngest, liked applesauce. So, add to that the fact that there is an upcharge for these stupid apple “fries”, and I am an unhappy camper.

On Friday, I learned of another change. It used to be when you ordered one of their value meals, they were sized as medium, large and king size. They’ve changed them. Now they are small, medium and large. Not that they have actually changed anything, except that if you go in there and order a medium and think you are getting (and paying for) the smallest size, you actually aren’t. I’m annoyed. Does the average consumer get a warm fuzzy thinking they are eating less because they will now order a large instead of king size when they will still shell out the same amount of money for the same amount of food? Or is this just a ploy so that in another month BK can roll out “King Size” again and offer 4 sizes, with an obscenely large king size and a price point to go with it? What the heck is going on here?

Last night I wrapped two of the gifts for the kids from the angel tree at my daughter’s preschool. My oldest son was sitting in the kitchen and asked whom the gifts were for. I told him and said I had one more gift to buy since I had picked out another tag. Since we had three kids it seemed right to buy for three kids. He turned this around in his brain a bit and then said that if there were any names still left when I went in, I should get one and he would buy the gift.

Now, this is the same kid that typically spends his allowance as soon as he can get to a store. However, his birthday was two weeks ago and when he saw his grandparents, they gave him birthday money. He was planning to use that to buy a video game. Buying a gift for someone in need would use half that money, which would take 4 weeks of allowance to replace.

Can I just say that I’m really proud of him? I know he’s only 13 and we have a million miles to walk with him, but he’s a good kid. And his heart’s in the right place.

We trekked down to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving. My sisters came with their families. It was nice to have everyone together, even though it is somewhat overwhelming after a while.

We celebrated November birthdays while we were there, convenient since my oldest had his birthday last week and my daughter had hers on Thanksgiving. My girlie is five. Sigh.

Visiting my parents means a six hour drive, including a stop for lunch. Have I mentioned how I love the dvd player? The headphones almost fit our youngest now, and since he’s all about Dora, he and the girlie happily watched several hours of Dora episodes. We don’t watch much tv at home, so trips like this are a huge treat for them. We also visited my in-laws and I got to meet my new-to-me niece, who will be one Dec. 26. Time flies.

Of course, the kids were worn out by the time we got home. Our youngest did manage a car nap, so he rebounded quite quickly and accompanied me to Target before dinner. The girlie doesn’t think she needs a nap, so she was quite a mess by the time I got her and her little brother in the tub this evening.

They have a holiday gift tree at my daughter’s preschool. This year it is just colored paper ornaments in a basket. I’m not sure if someone complained about the tree last year or they just haven’t located it yet. Either way, we picked two kids’ names out of the basket. We chose a four year old girl and a three year old boy, each with a gift wish.

When we did this last year, my daughter wasn’t really old enough to understand what it was. I explained then that we were buying gifts for friends that we didn’t know yet, and maybe we wouldn’t ever know them, but it was a good thing to do. I told her that the gift we gave might be the only one that little girl would get because sometimes Moms and Dads just don’t have the money to buy their kids anything, and that makes me sad because kids shouldn’t have to worry about that.

This year there’s a suggested $25 limit on gifts. As I looked through the basket of wishes, I was saddened by the number of tags with boys’ and girls’ names and requests for jeans or a sweater. Should a 6 year old wish for a sweater for Christmas? I don’t think that was on my wishlist at age 6. My sisters and I used to go through the Penney’s catalog, marking all the things we’d like to get for Christmas. Toys, toys and more toys.

Last night at Target I picked up the toys on the wish ornaments, a Littlest Pet Shop set and some Diego Mega Blocks. I told my husband about the other tags at the preschool, requests for clothes. He said it was okay if I wanted to go back and pick out a couple more names if they don’t all get filled next week.

We now have a teenager in our house. I suppose I knew it would happen eventually, I just didn’t want to believe it. I hope we’re doing okay as parents. I mean, well, we’ve never done this before. Poor kid – his whole life has been an experiment. We’re just going through trying to make sure he learns the things he needs to know, but do we really know what that is? Have we built a strong enough foundation for him to stand on as he grows and reaches out more and more on his own? I hope so. It seems like it, right? He’s a good kid. And he’s damn smart.

These next years are hard. It’s hard to be a teenager, I know that. Something tells me being a teenager’s parent isn’t exactly a cake walk.

But man does it hurt. The kids decided to sit on the kitchen stools. This would be fine except that they were sitting on the wrong side of the island and the littlest was trying to reach all the buttons on the radio. I told my daughter to get down and as I moved my youngest off the stool he was on, it fell. It fell onto my two little toes. And it really, really hurts. And I yelled. I yelled really, really loud.

My two little toes are much bigger than their counterparts on my other foot. And they are much more black and blue than their counterparts, probably due to the fact that the toes on my other foot are their normal size and color. I am considering banning stools.

This seems like a good enough reason to skip the workout tonight.

We are a week from the election now. Someone calls here at least once a day. Tonight, Paul’s party of choice called, wanting to be sure he goes to vote. Umm, hello, but if you want to remind him of something, you do not tell him a week in advance. A reminder is a day before, at most, otherwise he’s not going to remember. Of course, since I know you will be calling back every day until the election, I’m sure you’ve got that covered.

The caller id says “MN Campaign for”, which is kind of fun since the relevant part of the caller id is missing. So, I answer the phone and say that Paul’s not here right now. The girl on the end of the line then goes into that she was just calling to make sure he’s going to vote, blah de blah… And I said, “Look, you’ve got his vote, and I’m going to vote for whomever stops calling here.” She laughed, and of course, I was only half joking.

I’m so tired of it. How much money has been donated and spent that could have done so much good elsewhere? What if every person or organization that has given money to a campaign instead gave half to the campaign and half to a good cause? What if they matched it one to one? How many mailers do you think I need to get in the mail that tell me women make less than men in the same job? And do you think I didn’t know that before you killed a couple trees to tell me?

Well, it seems we finally have the bus stop problem straightened out.

A few weeks ago, I called the school transportation office about moving the kids’ bus stop. Our cul de sac meets up with a busy road and the bus stop was placed at the intersection. This is where it’s always been, which is fine, except that this year they are coming into our street to turn the bus around. We have a mailbox station/bus shelter where the cul de sac circles around, so why not actually use the dumb thing as a bus stop? So, I called and asked if the kids could be picked up there. I didn’t hear back and figured they had forgotten or perhaps had people with legitimate problems to deal with, so I called again last week to find out if someone had a chance to consider this.

The man I spoke with told me that the bus driver told him she was already picking up the kids there. I told him she was not, and when the kids had asked her about it she told them that they could not be picked up there because that was not their stop. He confirmed that I wanted them to be picked up at the mailbox/bus shelter station at the end of the street. I suggested that perhaps she had a different opinion of where the end of the street was, even though there is no shelter there. He said he would follow up with the bus driver and that the kids should wait at the shelter.

So, Monday morning, the kids wait at the shelter and Monday morning the bus driver again tells them it is not their stop and they need to wait at the intersection. Monday afternoon she again drops them off at the intersection, then drives by them (twice!) as she turns the bus around in our street. I tell our oldest that she probably just didn’t get the message yet with the weekend and all, so on Tuesday they again wait at the shelter to be picked up.

Of course, Tuesday is a repeat of Monday. So, once again I call the transportation office and explain it all to the woman who answers the phone. She takes my number, confirms the street/stop (and it’s clear she already knows about this) and tells me Jeff will call me back if there’s a problem. I ask where I should tell the kids to wait for the bus. She tells me that if Jeff said they should wait at the shelter, that’s where they should wait.

I tell my oldest that if the bus driver gives him grief, all he is to say is that this is where the school transportation office said the stop is and to be sure not to say or do anything that will give her reason to get him in trouble. Wednesday morning the bus driver tells him it’s not his stop, he tells her what I told him. It seems she talks to someone during the day on Wednesday because that afternoon she’s mad but does drop them off at the bus shelter.

I just don’t understand why she wanted to pick them up and drop them off at the intersection of a 40mph road when she was already coming into our street to turn the bus around anyway!?! Is it that much fun to make all the other traffic stop for you?

Two more weeks and it will be over. Thank goodness. I’m soooo tired of it all. My husband told me we will be moving to Canada if Obama doesn’t win. We will not be moving to Canada. I told him his children will miss him. Apparently I am part of the Obama target market. I have gotten 3 mailings in the last week. Stop killing my trees!!