The "S" word

Not too long ago, Bookworm(9) was really grouchy and driving me crazy. I finally found out that she had been having some problems with her friends at school and that's why she was in such a bad mood. She told me how they had been having a conversation about some boys in her class and that one of them had used the "h" word. She didn't know what that meant and they wouldn't tell her so she felt left out of the conversation and she also felt kind of dumb. So, she asked me to tell her all the bad words as a remedy to her problem. My first reaction was to refuse but then I decided that she probably did need to know what the "bad" words are to be able to avoid then. I wrote down a little list because I don't like to say them out loud (I know, I'm such a baby) and then explained what they meant. She was so happy to finally "be in the know." We threw the paper away and that was that.

Fast-forward to today. She came up to me and said, "You know the 's' word that means poop? Well, in science class, Mr. L was talking about how scientists can tell what people a long time ago ate by looking through their human waste--I don't like to say poop. And he called it the 's' word."
Now you can imagine that I'm starting to get a little upset thinking that the science teacher said the "s" word to a class of 4th graders. So I said, "Really?! He said..." and I spelled it out.
She looked at me blankly and I realized there must be a mistake. I said, "Do you mean that he said 'scat'?"
"Oh yeah, that's what he said."
"Scat isn't a bad word."
"Oh. Okay."
Maybe we need to have a review lesson on bad words every few weeks.

Economic crisis?

We went out on Saturday night with two other couples in the Elder's Quorum presidency. We pulled into the mall and it was packed. I don't go to the mall very often so I don't know what it's normally like but we had to drive around for a while to find a parking space. Then we went in and tried to get a table at P.F. Chang's. It was an hour wait so we walked down to Spaghetti Factory. There was no wait but still quite a few people were there. When things first really started going south in the economy I saw a few signs of people tightening their belts but I'm not really seeing that anymore. Maybe it's not possible to observe a real change in other people's habits. Has anyone else seen evidence of an economic crisis outside of your own checkbook?

Random post

I would like to wish everyone a Happy New Year. However, this post is mostly about something dumb, but it annoys me so I'm going to gripe about it. I was reading the newspaper and came across a critic's list of "Best of 2008" stuff: movies, TV, plays, concerts. I love "top ten" lists so I quickly looked at his list of best movies of 2008. Here's my beef. Three of the ten movies are going to be released in Jan. and Feb. of 2009! How does that make them 2008 movies?! Ugh! I think it has something to do with the Oscars, but it drives me crazy!

More Kid Quotes

Yesterday we travelled for a couple of hours to go see my cousin who is leaving on his mission this week. Since it was a lot of time in the car the kids had to entertain themselves whatever way they could. At one point they started playing 20 Questions. It was Littleman(5)'s turn and OrphanAnnie(7) asked him what it was, an animal, vegetable, or mineral. He said it was a cinnamon roll. She said, "No. You're not supposed to tell us what it is. Think of something and then tell us if it's a vegetable, animal, or mineral." He said, "It's a cinnamon roll," and the conversation went back and forth with more and more frustration on both sides until we realized that he was saying "mineral" the way that he knew how, "cinnamon roll."

Later they were pretending that they were being chased by bad guys. Bookworm(9) was sitting in the middle row and OrphanAnnie and Littleman were sitting in the back. OA and LM told BW to shoot the bad guys so she turned around and said, "Deck the halls!" I said, "Deck the halls? What do you mean? What do you think 'Deck the halls' means?" She answered, "Get out of the halls."

A Letter

Dear Readers,
I started reading a new book called The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. The story in the book is told through letters sent back and forth to various people and I'm quite enjoying it. The characters' personalities really come out through the words of their letters and it's made me think about letter writing. It really is almost a lost art. I think it's sad but it's not like I've done my part to keep letter writing going. So I'm going to attempt to write a nice letter like the ones in this book.

We had a wonderful Christmas. We're sad that Mr. Dad's parents couldn't join us on Christmas morning because of the weather, but we still had a great time by ourselves. We decided to get the kids a Wii this year. Watching them open that present was so fun. We had wrapped it and then put it a bigger box and wrapped that, etc. until it was wrapped up four times. I've never done that before and that was half the fun. Their reaction when they opened the Wii box was priceless. I got it on video so maybe I can show it to you sometime. We received so many other wonderful gifts, too, and we feel very blessed to have such generous and kind family and friends. I hope you had a great Christmas, too.

The weather here has been crazy. I would guess that we have a total of about 1 1/2+ feet of snow. I've done all the snow shoveling because Mr. Dad's back and snow removal don't mix. I'm getting pretty tired of it. It's been such heavy snow that it's a hard job and my shoulder has been bothering me. I'm not sure if it's the snow shoveling or something else that started the aching shoulder but the shoveling definitely doesn't help.

Now I'm starting to feel like I have cabin fever. I haven't gone anywhere for three days and I'm feeling a little restless. I tried to leave this morning but I couldn't get the car out on the street. I had shoveled the driveway but the city hasn't grated the road in front of our house so I couldn't get through the snow on edge of the street. The bishop was driving by, saw me spinning out and stopped to help push me back into the driveway. I was a little worried he was going to have a heart attack from all the exertion! So, anyway, we've been stuck here. I did go out later and shovel the snow on the street so hopefully we'll be able to get out tomorrow. I'm not the only one who's had problems. The garbage truck got stuck after it picked up my neighbor's trash this afternoon. It would have been funny if I hadn't felt so bad for him.

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas, too. I look forward to the new year that is upon us. I think it's going to be a good one.

Sincerely,
Kim

Kid quotes

Yesterday, the kids got up a little early and we were trying to sleep in a bit. Mr. Dad got up a couple of times to get them to quiet down and finally made them go downstairs. I came out about an hour later and they came upstairs complaining. Bookworm(9) said, "Daddy made us go downstairs but it was just Littleman(5) being loud and it wasn't us and I was so hungry I was going crazy. It felt like I was going to throw up or like I was having a baby!"

Littleman: "I want some air hockey chicken." (teriyaki)

This one's for you, Julie

This strip is called Argyle Sweater. It can be pretty funny. You can see more here.