Recently in Parenting Category

I hope you all had a cheery Christmas. Here is the lovely tree we had this year. I can say it was lovely because it was designed and decorated by my daughter. She picked through our ornaments and found ones that fit her theme. She even has a theme picked out for next year's tree.

Here is the artist with her tree:

She begged to have her picture taken while she was in her favorite costume: real fatigues purchased from Goodwill. If your child loves dress-up, you should always visit thrift stores to find wonderful outfits.

Meanwhile, I think D did a great job playing interior decorator and I hesitate to put away my tree this year.

More moms on the other side of the pond are choosing life, including a mother of conjoined twins and mothers of Down's Syndome babies. This is wonderful news! God bless these moms and their families.

D wants me to post this photo taken by the neighbor girl.

This is D, playing in her military shirt, up in an oak tree. She loves to climb trees.

Yes, that is a bug zapper (not mine) in the bottom-right. It's Florida; we have many mosquitoes.

• I overheard two little trickertreaters and one of the girls said Sarah Palin burns books.
• Most of the trickertreaters were following the old custom of carrying pillow cases. Duh, they fit more candy.
• We had fewer hookers and pimps this year. That's nice.
• S won his basketball game and D lost hers.
• We tried to vote early but the line was longer than Communist Russians waiting for toilet paper. About 20% of registered voters in my county had voted by this morning. H and I decided we'll wait to vote on Tuseday.
• I just realized that it's "trick or treaters".

Recently, I showed you S's new hair cut.

Here's his new 'do today:

He wanted to dye his hair green and I figured this is the one day of the year when being weird is socially acceptable.

D said, "Well...at least we won't lose him in a crowd."

We used Jerome Russell Bwild Temp'ry Color Spray in Jaguar Green and it washes right off. Thank God, because S is having some Buyer's Remorse. He's not accustomed to standing out like a sore thumb...or, as D called her brother, a neon light.

A year and a half ago, we joined the local YMCA. I highly recommend the Y for all of ya'll. We're very happy with it.

Over the summer, D signed up for basketball. Being her first time in organized sports, it was a season fraught with worries.

This Fall, we signed both children up for basketball. Oh, my! Twice the practices, twice the games, twice the stress, and twice the joy.

They each had the first game last Saturday.

Here is our little Buddy:

    

Yes, he's number one.

Here he is shooting during the Warm-up:

Here is D (Number Eight) during her Warm -up:

The age difference thankfully puts them in separate leagues. (It would not do if D were to Mother Hen her brother during a game.)

The scores? They both lost. They came away happy, though. I do not expect them to win; I require three things of them: that they do their best, that they try to improve, and that they enjoy the game. Nothing else matters. We do give treats to winners, though, because we're all Pavlov's dogs.

Now you know where I'll be three days a week. It's a good thing the Y has a great exercise center. During all those practices, I can keep busy by lifting weights and running the treadmill while watching TV. And you know I'm counting all this as P.E.

I hate to hear of any child dying, so I was upset to read last night of the little boy who accidentally killed himself with an Uzi. Looks like no laws were broken. Eight-year-old Christopher was allowed, by his watching father and a licenced and certified instructor, to shoot a pumpkin. No one could have anticipated the boy's death.

Having gun-loving children, I wonder if I could have been Christopher's father, reaching for my camera as my son takes a shot. The answer is no. We're just not gun show people. My kids are, but not my husband or me. If we were? Yes, I would have let a teenager try the Uzi, but not a little boy of eight. Not even my son of ten because he is not very strong and I doubt he could handle the gun's kick.

It was a parenting choice that ended with a nightmare. I don't think any one should be punished; however, this was Massachusetts, home to some of the toughest gun laws in the country, and I am sure gun-control groups will use this terrible event for their own agenda.

What do ya'll think: would you let your child fire an Uzi?

D just informed me that she recently made a comment on my blog using an alias. She said she wanted to see what I thought of her opinion if I didn't know it was from her.

I had no clue - she really got me. I had read the comment days ago and thought, "Hmm, this person is someone I should get to know." Little did I know...

She's so giddy that she fooled me. Yep, ha ha, joke's on me.

Here is Miss Smirky this past Saturday at Basketball - wearing her perpetual ponytail:

A father in Tennessee decided to name his new daughter Sarah McCain Palin. Sarah is a pretty name; though not even I, a die-hard Republican, would name my child after the current Republican Ticket. However, the father, Mark Ciptak of Elizabethton, went behind his wife's back to show his affection for the GOP. The baby's agreed upon name was to be Ava Grace, but Ciptak got his wife's signature on a second name form.  Republican, or not, what he did was sneaky and wrong. You are a bad, bad husband, Mark Ciptak. You should be ashamed of yourself.

S has fast growing hair. It would make any girl happy, but S is a boy and he likes very short cuts. H often has to go a few weeks between cuts and this bothers him. He doesn't like to look shaggy.

I decided enough was enough and suggested we buy hair clippers so that I could cut his hair at home and keep it short for him. I figured we could save money and that I couldn't possibly do a worse job than he normally gets. S, at first, did not like this idea. Handling sharp objects is not my forte and hair clippers have electricity thrown in for added fun danger. I persisted and finally S succomb. I think he was just plain tired of that mane.

We bought a Conair clipper set from Big Lots for $15. I figure, within two haircuts, the clippers will have paid for themselves.

Naturally, I started the job by reading online and looking for video tutorials. Armed with just enough knowledge to get myself in trouble, I tackled S's hair - faithfully assisted by D.

This is the result (now, don't laugh):

He likes his hair this way, so he's very happy now. That makes me happy.

His sister will no longer complain about his hair. That makes me really happy.