Snapshot: The Soap

I’m posting this as a snapshot of life right now. A reminder of where we are, because I know without this, I’ll someday forget about the soap.

I don’t know about your house, but here, with boys 10, 8, and 5, this is what shower time looks like:
-all 3 boys upstairs, 1 parent in the hallway outside the bathroom
-boys taking turns brushing teeth, showering, getting pjs on
-monitoring parent in the hall constantly trying to keep the assembly line moving, often questioning to the kid in the shower, “what are you doing? Just get clean!”

The answer from the shower is always “I’m almost done” or “I’m washing the shampoo out of my hair.”

However, no one has mentioned this.

Surprisingly, no one has mentioned that they’re busy digging holes through the soap.

I can’t wait to hear this explained in the morning.

—–

UPDATE: First thing this morning, Luke was brushing his teeth so I stopped at the bathroom door and said, “So, what do you know about the holes in the soap?” He grinned, and said, “I don’t know…I think both Bennett and I were doing it.”

Bennett walked out of his room (wearing clothes that don’t match again…seriously, how long does it take to learn this?) and I asked him the same question. He totally giggled, and then demonstrated while using this funny voice of his, saying, “They’re finger holes! You know, I put my fingers through them, and then I can wash my legs up and down without dropping the soap!” This actual use was obviously news to Luke, based on his funny reaction.

I was laughing so hard. I mean, Matt and I thought this was hilarious last night, but hearing Bennett’s explanation really cracked me up! I never dreamed those holes were actually serving a purpose.

Mother’s Day 2013

When Mother’s Day rolls around each year, I try to fight the urge to focus on how many years it’s been since we last celebrated with my mom, and try hard to stay in the moment around here in my role as Mom.

For the record, it’s been 5. Each one as sucky and as beautiful as the one before.

In choosing to focus on the here and now, we had a really fun day. It consisted of:
-church
-a hike in Castlewood
-delicious leftovers from Cake-n-Steak last night for today’s lunch
-major tree trimming that was supposed to be minor tree-trimming, but all of the work is done
-a quick run to the mall
-one of my favorite games with the boys, throwing pop flies off the deck for them to catch
-gifts from my boys: 2 maxi dresses that I wanted (plus Matt being super cool about how much I’m shopping lately to get new clothes that fit!)
-a Wii Sports Resort Tournament
-capped off by sushi for a girl who hates seafood (it’s so delicious: just avocado, cucumber, rice and pink soy paper – not a bit of seafood in sight!) and the 2 hour finale of Revenge.

And in reflecting on the past, this quote from an unlikely source: Harry Potter & The Sorcerer’s Stone, spoken by Dumbledore to Harry about Voldemort:

He didn’t realize that love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. Not a scar, no visible sign…to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever. It is in your very skin.”

Amen.

Thoughts on A+F

*It should be noted that this is the polite, blog-version of what I’m thinking. A night with girlfriends and a pitcher of sangria might yield rawer, not-as-nice wording, but the sentiment is the same.*

Mike Jeffries, the CEO of Abercrombie, had a little interview published last week explaining why his stores don’t carry anything above a size 10 (yes, a size TEN, and let’s be honest, it’s going to be a lean size 10) in women’s clothing: he doesn’t like fat girls.

If you’ve been paying attention to A+F for any of the past 10+ years, you know they’re not opposed to controversy. Overly- sexualized ads featuring teens, inappropriate styles in their children’s line…the list goes on. This is not a company out to promote family values, and this is not a CEO who has minced words about who he wants shopping at his store.

Let me give you a few excerpts from past and current interviews:

“He doesn’t want larger people shopping in his store, he wants thin and beautiful people,” Lewis (the interviewer, summing up his statements) said. “He doesn’t want his core customers to see people who aren’t as hot as them wearing his clothing. People who wear his clothing should feel like they’re one of the ‘cool kids.’”

“In every school there are the cool and popular kids, and then there are the not-so-cool kids,” he told the site. “Candidly, we go after the cool kids. We go after the attractive all-American kid with a great attitude and a lot of friends. A lot of people don’t belong [in our clothes], and they can’t belong. Are we exclusionary? Absolutely. Those companies that are in trouble are trying to target everybody: young, old, fat, skinny. But then you become totally vanilla. You don’t alienate anybody, but you don’t excite anybody, either,” he told Salon.

Mmmmkay. This is a 61-year-old man saying these things. Not a 14-year-old girl. And just for the sake of the rest of this post, I encourage you to click HERE and HERE so you know what the man who is saying all of these things looks like. I’m going to keep it as polite as I can by saying he was likely never a model, and leave it at that.

I get that I am nowhere near the target audience for Jeffries’ store: a 35-year-old mom. Teens and 20-somethings are his target, but guess what: your, and my, children are, too. Which means that because it’s my money, I AM his target. Of course, he’ll never see a dime of my money, not only because of who he is, but because his clothes are ridiculously overpriced. However, I have purchased a shirt from the resale shop for Luke that was Abercrombie, and here’s where it is now:

I don’t want my kids wearing the logo of a company that promotes hate and superiority.

Now, it’s foolish to argue that obesity isn’t a huge problem in America. But it’s a health problem…that’s why the issue deserves attention. Not because a pompous, aging CEO of a company doesn’t want imperfect bodies in his clothes. And let’s talk about that for a minute: when the target audience is teens, who are at an age when they are critical of their bodies already no matter what the size, what does this tell them? I cringe thinking of that beautiful teen girl, so incredibly self-aware, hearing this man’s cruel words.

My biggest issue, though, is that it’s no secret that being overweight is a primary reason kids are bullied by their peers. And here we have a grown man – a freaking GROWN MAN WHO KNOWS HE’S BEING INTERVIEWED – encouraging this exclusionary behavior, going so far as to call out “cool kids.”

So to those “Cool Kids” out there, let me have a word with you for a minute: there’s nothing cool about making other people feel like they’re less than you for any reason. Don’t let a guy who has shown you exactly how uncool he is have another dollar of your hard-earned money. And if you’re “cool” enough to work at an A+F store? Pound the pavement, kiddo, and find another company to work for. This guy isn’t worth it.

I’m disgusted by this sad excuse for a man, and I sincerely hope that you are, too.

Some Conversations with Jack Henry

he spotted this artwork last week at the school district art fair, and asked to have his picture taken with it!

My little buddy is a bit under the weather, headed to the doctor later today to make sure he doesn’t have bronchitis, but he’s still been full of funny today!

And I don’t want to forget his little comments, so here they are…

1. I thought he was getting better, as he hadn’t had a fever this morning and woke up pretty perky. So we went to Old Navy (thankfully, not many people there, so I don’t think we exposed others to his germs…sorry, world, I was wrong, as he started feeling bad again right after we left the store). While there, I was trying on some flip-flops, and he was playing with a little ball. I didn’t think he was paying any attention to me at all, when out of nowhere he says, “Don’t get those. They aren’t good.” Well. Ok. Truth is I didn’t like them, either, but I wasn’t anticipating him having an opinion!

2. He announced that he’s going to bring Waffle, his little stuffed dog, to college with him, and when he comes home from school he’ll teach Waffle what he’s learned. I think this is a fabulous idea, as I’m sure it will keep the trampy girls away, and probably keep him from having friends who make bad choices. Good call, JH.

Color Run: Hair Drama

Soooo…we did the Color Run this morning. Matt and I and a good portion of our small group, plus about 20,000 of our closest friends and neighbors gathered in downtown STL to run/walk a 5k* and get doused in powdered color. Sounds fun, right?

Well, it really was. The weather was crappy (50 and drizzling the entire time), but that totally did not stop us from having a great time. The atmosphere is fun and getting covered in color and looking ridiculous was a blast.

pre-race, all clean and happy

post-race fun!

However.

Because of the rain, we knew that the color would likely stain worse than it does on a typical day. When we got home, Matt showered first, and texted from upstairs, “You better pray hard you didn’t get much pink on you.” When he came downstairs a bit later and I saw why he said that, I got a little nervous…his neck and head still had dark stains on them, even after being thoroughly scrubbed.

pretty awesome, right? i actually loved the green/blue streaks down my ponytail!

And my hair had a LOT of pink in it. I started having flashbacks to 5th grade and my punk-rocker Halloween costume, complete with pink sprayed hair. That stayed pink for a couple of weeks.

I quick headed to the shower, bringing along Dawn dish detergent when my friend Robin suggested that it helped. I scrubbed and scrubbed my hair with 2 different shampoos AND the Dawn, and it was quite evident that the pink? Wasn’t going anywhere.

In a panic, I texted Kelli, consulted Matt and his mom, who was our super-helpful household manager while we were traipsing around downtown getting colored cornstarch shot at us, and eventually decided that I needed to enlist the help of Anne, my amazing hairstylist, because I seriously looked like a drug addict. (Psst…if you need a new stylist, call Anne, and tell her I sent you! You don’t have to wait for a hair emergency to call her .)

more than slightly concerned at this point, right before my appointment. the color is all in blotches, and it’s all over my head.

I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s just say that a) there was a LOT of laughing at the salon, with everyone in disbelief that the Color Run could do something like this to my hair and b) even with their products and mad skills, my hair was still orange/pink in spots after a few tries at removal.

Eventually, Anne was able to lighten the color up enough that she could highlight and lowlight my hair, fixing the problem spots, and getting it looking like a normal non-Color-Runner’s hair again without damaging my hair. Thank God.

after 3 hours of work! phew!

Since getting home tonight, I’ve learned this fun information from googling Color Run hair stain: you’re supposed to coat your hair (particularly if it’s light-colored) with olive oil or coconut oil before the race, or completely cover it. Obviously, had I even remotely thought this could be a problem, I would have done one of these things. I recommend that if you’re considering doing a Color Run, YOU DO THEM ALL. (Reportedly, you can also try ketchup or OxiClean for removal from hair, too, which I didn’t try, but have very little faith that they would’ve done anything to remedy the situation.)

Share this with the blondes you know who might be doing a Color Run, and save them some drama, okay?

*More on this later. This 5k was the impetus for our major lifestyle change around here, and it deserves more than this post about my hair issues.

Eight.

I started writing this on April 6…since Bennett’s birthday is April 7…and it’s now April 23…

I had all of these thoughts in my head that just haven’t made it to the computer regarding Bennett’s birthday (delayed for the most part by me needing to finish up a mere 1635 magnets from the last Very Jane sale, which are finally done! OH, and the past 2 weeks having a combined 17 baseball games and practices.). In typical “you’re the second kid, sorry,” fashion, I’m now days late and well, it is what it is.

As I reread his seventh birthday post, I really felt like, “Yep, that’s still a really good description of him!” His intensity, for the most part, is working to his advantage, and I sincerely hope that only improves with age (though, don’t misunderstand me…he’s such a typical sibling, particularly in his ability to instigate). He’s improving as a student, and, I think, overall becoming more confident in his abilities, as well as just understanding who he is a little better.

While his love and understanding for sports has only grown in the past year, I’d say that the best by-product of this is that his bond with Matt has strengthened because of their shared love of Illini basketball and the game of baseball. Luke really likes both of them, too (Jack Henry’s interest is increasing, but he’s just not there yet)…Bennett’s just more passionate about them. And, frankly, about everything in his life.

Case in point: his teacher has this cute birthday bag that goes home with each kid on their birthday. There’s a book to read and an activity to do, which is to fill in a page with a picture and a couple of sentences about what you would wish for if you had one wish. Nearly every entry in the book from his classmates is for an iPad or something similar. Bennett got the book, and thought for a while about what one wish he wanted, and he couldn’t come up with a “thing” that he really wants (which is fine by me…he has enough stuff, and he’s just not a “stuff” kind of kid, anyway). So here’s what he wrote:

I wish for the Illini to win a National Championship and for Illini to win a Big 10 Title in the same year.

For real. This is his one wish.

Of course, I haven’t planned a friend party for him yet. I think we know what we’re doing, but it’s not on the calendar, and there is no excuse (I mean, HELLO, I KNOW his birthday is coming every year) except to say that I suck at planning birthday parties, plain and simple.

However, we did have a really fun family birthday party for him and his cousin Will over Easter weekend, and I have the pictures to prove it. And, we did celebrate our boy as a family on his actual birthday. So don’t feel too bad for him.

Take a look!

my nephew will and bennett…they are such good buddies!

there was an unfortunate accident with the cookie cake…still delicious, though.

i love this kid so much!

the fam on easter morning

brownies were his requested bday treat…and isn’t that magnet picture that JH made for him cute?

posing goofy, on purpose

presents from mom & dad! that giant backpack is his baseball gear bag for the team he’s on this year.

Advertising.

Thanks to nasty Hardees and their porn used to sell burgers (remember all of that? The PR chick’s response still floors me), our family has had a “mute the commercials and avert your eyes” rule for advertising, particularly during Cardinal baseball broadcasts.

However, of course, occasionally we forget and commercials slip through. I do love it when one of the boys realizes this, generally when a Cialis commercial airs, and someone yells “earmuffs!” and dives for the remote to mute it:).

Not all advertising is raunchy though, and thanks to a few commercials breaks that have made it into the Diehl living room, Bennett now has a new vacation destination in mind based on the town’s appealing-to-children advertising.

At least twice now he’s mentioned that he really wants to go to Branson.

Yep. Branson.

{He is not appeased by my telling him he’s already been to Branson, back in 2006, and I can prove it with pictures.}

So congrats, Branson Department of Tourism…your ads are working.