All decked out

Let me just start out by saying that lounging around on a deck or patio was meant to be a part of my life.  Growing up, the deck at our house was the main location for any type of family or social gathering. Many parties were held on the deck, usually holding lots more people than it was built for.  My mom and I used to love sitting outside for no reason at all, and I have many memories of heading straight to the deck after school for sunbathing with my friends.  Even my house at college had a deck for Pete's sake!  (yes that was a lot of fun too) So, you can imagine the VOID in my life for the past TEN YEARS, since both houses we have owned have been DECK-DEPRIVED.  

Our first house had a large concrete driveway and parking area, which I often 'pretended' was a patio.  I did sit out there on a plastic chair once in a while, but I couldn't bring myself to buy proper furniture for it, since it really was.... well... a driveway.    Here's a picture of my bro and sis-in-law and Ben nine years ago enjoying our plastic chairs and driveway...

Our current house has absolutely nothing to offer as far as an outdoor seating area besides grass, grass and more grass (unless you would actually consider gravel a seating area, which I do not).  Last year at the end of the season, I finally broke down and bought some patio furniture, in the hopes that I would be able to set it on a proper surface sometime in the near future.  Since then I have once again been 'pretending' to have a patio, as seen in this picture below from Will's birthday...

So you can imagine my excitement last night as we headed over to the new house to put the patio furniture on the deck.  A real deck!  And while I did take a few minutes to oooh and ahhh over the fresh interior paint and light fixtures, I  really only had eyes for my new outdoor seating area!!!!  Look - there it is!  A deck AND patio!!!

Even though it started DOWN-POURING rain (of course) shortly after we got there, I was still able to enjoy the view and relish in the fulfillment of my cedar and concrete dreams.  Here's me taking shelter from the rain - but see how happy I am?  And can you see the patio furniture in the distance - see it? back there on the DECK?  

Now, one would guess the only thing left to do in light of the rain is to HEAD HOME.  booooo :-(   No Way!  This is the part where you head inside, crank the painter's radio and dance and play air guitar on top of ladders - OBVIOUSLY!!!!

Caution: Do not try this at home (especially the last part)

This video is a bit shaky - I was filming

from the front seat of a moving truck. But even  

 so, I think you can still tell that he was really

feelin the music!

"Hello Head, nice to meet you. I'm Truck Door..."

I'm thinking I might as well cover Charlie in band-aids before we even leave the house from now on, just to stay ahead of the game.   Thank goodness after the last dirt bike fiasco I bought new first aid kits for the vehicles, because we had to bust in to one today about .10 seconds after setting foot onto soil at our destination.  

Is it really such a coincidence that the same kid keeps ending up in the emergency room, has the most accidents and has probably lost the most blood over the course of his life in comparison to the others?  HE IS ACCIDENT PRONE!  I really think he is. Only Charlie could cut his head open on the truck DOOR.  Yup.  As he was crazily exiting the back seat, running before his feet ever hit the ground, his forehead collided with the opening driver door.  Who does that!  After hearing the 'THUD' and the initial scream,  I looked over to see a bawling kid sprawled out on the new concrete approach cupping his forehead, which was leaking blood.   All I could think was "you have to be kidding me!"  

Luckily for me, I've picked up plenty of tips from watching the ER nurses patch Charlie up in the past, so I got the gap closed pretty tight with some teeny butterfly bandages I whipped up. He calmed down significantly after he was cleaned up and bandaged, even finding pleasure in the fact he was the first one to drop 13 drops of blood on the new concrete.  Ah memories!  I had thought about having them put their hand prints or initials in the freshly poured concrete, but since we didn't get the chance, I guess I'll have to settle for blood stains instead.  Hey, you can't get much more personal than that!  

I'm just not a fan of the Beave

I'm probably going to offend some people here (sorry Mac), but I just gotta say - I THINK BEAVERS ARE ANNOYING !!!! *whew* Yesterday, we headed over to the new pad to check things out.  After scoping out the house, we headed over the hill and through the woods to ... a disgusting moat and a beaver dam? Ugh.  Our nice LITTLE beautiful *kid friendly* stream had been turned into a big, nasty, stagnant DEEP *kid hazard* of a beaver paradise.  

They built this:

and our stream went from THIS:

to THIS:

Yes, that is me wearing argyle socks and polka-dot rubber boots.  LOL

While the kids had a lot of fun trying to break this thing apart, I seriously do not know what to do about these pests!  The dam is so thick and everything is soooo backed up.  To make matters worse, I think they also have a couple smaller dams down stream.   I read somewhere that to get rid of the beaver dam, you need to get rid of the beaver.  Is that true?  How the heck do you get rid of a beaver?  

Between dodging the flying mud glops, steadying teetering kids, and scanning for ticked off beavers to jump out and bite us, it was an eventful afternoon.  The kids actually got some water flowing over the edge as you can see above, but I'm confident it was probably repaired shortly after we left.  (fuzzy jerks)  

More to come...

Back to Reality

I wouldn't want to shatter the utopian picture I painted for you yesterday, however - you knew it was too good to be true, right?  If I really thought my kids were transformed over night into law abiding citizens and eager do-gooders, I must have inhaled too many paint fumes.   This morning when Ben asked me to shop-vac up the rest of the scraped paint around the garage, I had my hesitations, but (against my better judgement) said I'd do it.  Normally, (like yesterday) when he asks me to do 'extra' things (like power wash the garage), I get a little irritated.  He usually acts like he cannot understand what the big deal is.  Sometimes he even takes the task on himself while watching the kids just to show me how 'easy' it really can be. Right.

I had to secretly giggle yesterday at an unfortunate incident which occurred while Ben was outside scraping the garage.  I came in from supervising Jacob for about 20 minutes to get ready to take Will to the dentist, leaving Ben to do his simple 'extra' job while watching all three kids.  I can't say I was too surprised when shortly after I departed I heard a lot of yelling outside, the screen door slam and saw a furious Ben stomping in the house, holding a kitten that had been freshly dipped in white paint.   I headed outside to assess the rest of the damage and saw a guilty Jacob sporting a fresh pair of 'white' gloves.  Oh boy.  As I brought him in the house to the sink where the kitten was being scrubbed,  Ben looked over and angrily stated "JACOB.  Look at what you did!  NAUGHTY."  At that moment, a wave of guilt washed over little Jakey and he sadly said "Sowwy Daddy"....  YEAH RIGHT!  Instead, Jacob looked over at his little creation and an evil smile slowly spread across his face.  Then he let out the lowest little diabolical snicker EVER, as if to say "you bet your sweet ass I did that, and it's pretty damn funny too!"  I think I saw Ben trying to hold back a tiny smile.

So today, as I said, I was asked to finish sucking up the paint scrapings.  With an optimistic attitude, I headed out, giving both older kids one CLEAR instruction: DO NOT LET JACOB GET WET.  Simple Simon.  So, again - why am I surprised that fifteen minutes later Jacob was soaked head to toe, Charlie was marching around with the bag of pretzels I told him NOT to take outside and Will's new shirt was splattered with white paint water?!?!?!   Seriously people!!!!!  DEEP BREATHS.  

Well, well, well... look what they can do!

power-washing....

vacuuming... 

more power-washing...

no comment...  

painting...

and yes, even mowing...

You can't make me!

I had a real eye opener last night after baseball.  It was the last game of the season, so we all headed into town for the team to have ice cream together. While sitting outside on the bench next to some other parents, we got to talking about our kids (gee what a shocker). Topics ranged from how crappy today's cartoons are, how to get kids to actually do what you tell them to and how to instill the value of a dollar.  

Growing up, I must have either done everything the first time my mom asked or I was just never asked to do anything at all.  I wish my memory was better, but I really don't remember any harping by my mother... but since I didn't even know how to clean a bathroom, boil water or wash dishes since I was in college or after... and the only memory I have of my bedroom is that of a disaster zone, I think I can probably extrapolate and come to the right conclusion .  Ben grew up on a farm where his mom and sister took care of all the 'inside' stuff (making beds, laundry and cleaning up after dinner) while he, his dad and brother did the chores outside.  That's just the way it was.  Ben was asked to do a lot of farm work (and he did) from a very young age, and I grew up being waited on... so we often find ourselves at odds with each other when trying to determine the appropriate responsibility level for the boys. We do however both agree that we want our kids to have a good work ethic and don't want them to be spoiled - ha.  EASIER SAID THAN DONE.

So, I'm sitting there last night listening to the man who poured our concrete foundation talk about his parenting philosophies, and I realize that he is a genius and that our kids have it wayyyyy too easy.   He's got two sons in Kindergarden and 2nd grade.  The 2nd grader is in Will's class, but since we started Will late in Kindergarten, Will's actually a year older.  While we were discussing how much all of our kids like Tom and Jerry, Concrete Guy says "Cartoons are okay in the morning while they eat breakfast, but after that the TV is off all day unless it's educational''.  Hmmm interesting.  He continued on from there while I took mental notes.  (um, could you repeat that part for me where your kid operates the skid loader?) Granted, these people live on a farm, but I could not believe the amount of help this 8-year old is able to offer to his Dad.  Chores (real ones) every morning and night, no matter what. This kid is asked to do 20 times what our boys are and probably dish out only a tenth of the whining.  When I found out that 8-year old helped his dad build fence two days in a row for EIGHT hours each LAST SUMMER, that was the topper.  All I could do was sit there stunned and think of my lazy, complaining and UNDER-WORKED crew of little men I have at home.  

When I got home and reported all of this to Ben, I of course got the 'I told you so' look while he started ticking off a list of jobs our kids could and should be doing.  Oh boy, did I open up a can of worms or what.  And excuse me sir - no they are not going to start mowing the lawn!!!!  Jeez.  What was I thinking even bringing up this topic?!  So, I've got some thinking to do on my own.  Right now, the biggest jobs our kids have are setting the table, feeding the cats and picking up toys.  And believe me, to get those things accomplished, I've got to tell them 564 times and listen to ten minutes of whining each time.  It's ridiculous!  I've tried the charts and stickers and points and all of that... it works for a while, but it's such a pain!  I might try money...  but shouldn't kids just DO what they're supposed to without being bribed?  *sigh*  I'm open for suggestions.