Learning on the Job

All sorts of things happening around here this week, so I thought I'd join up with Julie for a concise way of sharing it.

What I Learned This Week:

1.  Buttercup is going to be much more helpful with the mowing than Phoenix ever was.  When Phoenix turned 12, I taught him how to work the Dixie Chopper.  Poor kid was a nervous wreck.  After that, I would ask him if he would like to keep an eye on the little boys while I mow, or mow himself.  Not once has he chosen to mow.  Buttercup is now 12, so this weekend I taught her.  Yeah, she'll choose to mow.

2. Taste of Home is the best magazine ever.

3.  I was making a cheesecake with a new recipe (refer to #2) that required chocolate wafer crumbs for the crust.  Couldn't find any plain chocolate wafers, so I bought the beloved Oreo.  I decided to take the cream out and use the cookie part for the recipe.  The kids were all over helping on that step.

Giant, Buttercup, and Phoenix would scrape the icing out and put the icing on the plate.

Turken licked the plate.

and his face.

while Cuckoo cleaned the knife (at the end!  no double dipping!)

3.  Phoenix is growing.  I knew he had grown quite a bit, but I found out just how much at his appointment yesterday.  Since January of last year, he has grown five inches taller and gained almost 20 pounds.  He is 5ft. 6 in tall.  Half an inch shorter than me.  When I asked at what age he would probably stop growing, she said that he just started.  He will end up being at least 6ft. tall.  (I kind of figured that.  His feet are already size 11.) 

4.  I'm not ready for my boy to be bigger than me.  I have always loved the image of a grown up son wrapping his much smaller mom up in a big ol' hug.  I always looked forward to having my boys hug me like that.  Now that the time is approaching, I have changed my mind.  I would like to hold him on my lap, please.

5.  A sausage calzone (see #2) tastes alot like biscuits and gravy.  Most of my kids love biscuits and gravy.

We ate up two of these things.

Well, one kid who likes bisuits and gravy didn't like the looks of the broccoli in it.  He just at the bread.

6.  Homegrown strawberries are the best.  Turken has figured this out.  Every day I find him sitting by one of the strawberry patches eating every single ripe berry he can find.

Last night was the first time we had enough to feed everyone for dinner.  Three kids asked if they were ones from the garden. (As anyone with multiple kids knows, they don't listen to each other's questions, even when sitting at the same table.  Of course I had to answer the same question three times.) They are true country, fresh-food snobs.  Only one of the six didn't gobble up every strawberry he could get.

He actually covers his mouth and says, "I don't like them." when we offer him a bite.  Does he actually think we are going to cram it down his throat?

7.  Hubby is falling apart.  He finally went to the doctor for the first time since we've been married.  When he called me after his appointment, his first comment was, "That's why I haven't gone to the doctor.  All they do is find something wrong."  Like high blood pressure.  Sleep apnea.  Deviated septum.  Bum knee.  He came home with a whole list of things to do, appointments to go to, medicine to take.  And he thought I was the sick one.

8.  Kids are very dangerous beings.  The doctor asked Hubby when he broke his nose.  He's never broken his nose as far he knew.  But since the horrible snoring and breathing trouble started only a few years ago, that septum was broken sometime in the last few years.  Perhaps one of the hundreds of times when a child jumped and threw his overly large noggin into Hubby's nose?

9.  When four women must sit and watch a soccer game at 8:00 on the morning of Mother's Day, they can get quite obnoxious.  And hilarious.  We spent the entire hour laughing harder than any of us have laughed in a long time.  It all started with one of the women telling us that her sister's dog was given only two years to live.

A dog.  Given two years to live.  That struck us as all sorts of funny.

We all agreed that it was one of the best Mother's Days ever.

10.  I thrive on lists.  When I make a list, my brain gets organized.  I will get so much more done, mostly because I won't forget what I am supposed to be doing.  Otherwise, I simply bumble around the house, doing bits of things here and there, without ever finishing a task.  (This is actually not a learn, but a relearn.  I knew this about myself, but I never wrote it down, so I forgot.)

11.  I need to make lists more often.

What have you learned this week?