2022 – Page 5 – Terry Family Shenanigans

Spring Break

We stayed home this year for Spring Break. We are toying with the idea of building a house and have some things going to see what we could get approved for on a loan so we didn’t want to do anything to extravagant. To help add a little bit of fun to the week, I agreed to watch our friends dog Po. He is a Berna-doodle, at least 100lbs, a fluff ball, and very playful. They had a lot of fun with him.

Matthew took him to the dog park a few times and he slept with him at night. Emilee fed him and took him on a few walks. Allison catered to his every need and whim. She barely left his side. They all played with him and had a good time. He is a pretty smart dog. He knew how to play hide-n-seek so they played that for hours.

They were hoping it would change my mind about wanting a dog but I told them from the start that wasn’t going to happen and this was just for a week. I thought he was a very good dog but he made everything smell like a dog, scratched my floors and required a lot of work that I don’t have energy for.

He brought a lot of fun to our Spring Break, and now when we see him at our friends he is very excited to see us. We fit some other fun stuff in for our Spring Break too. Emilee did horse camp, we saw several movies together, had lots of play dates, went to lunch together, the zoo, and stayed up to late and slept in to long. It was great.

The last part of the break Ryan went on his 15th annual March madness trip with his BFF Mike and Sam.

We Work Better Separately

Allison was given the assignment of writing a paper on Gabby Douglas for school. In class they switched papers and peer edited it for each other. They were given a specific form with items to check and give feed back on the paper they edited. Allison was sick this week and wasn’t able to get her paper edited, so her teacher suggested she have a parent edit it and fill out the review form. Ryan was out of town so she asked if I would edit it for her. In hind sight I should have had Matthew do it but I wasn’t smart enough to come up with that at the time. Allison has a lot of amazing strengths and talents. She is a very smart girl. She has been working really hard on her moodiness and responding to emotions on the same level as the person she is talking with (instead of always responding with a 10).

In general we have been getting along a lot better. So much better that I completely forgot that one of Allison’s many strengths is not taking constructive criticism well. Especially from her mother.

She left me in my room with her computer and the review sheet and I started editing. I followed the review sheet and highlighted, noted and marked whatever it told me to do. After about 5 minutes had passed Allison returned to get her paper. I told her I wasn’t done yet. She left and came back 5 minutes later. I still wasn’t done. She looked over my shoulder and asked what could be taking so long. When she saw that I had actually made edits to her paper (that she apparently thought was unimprovable) she show cased another one of her talents. She is pretty incredible at quick thinking and has a quick wit to match. Unfortunately, she sometimes uses this ability to ring someone up and down on a level that makes you feel like it was scripted for a movie if she feels wronged. Looking back now it was comical, at the time not so much. She was truly flabbergasted that I could have found anything wrong with her paper beyond an accidental grammar error. Allison also has an incredible way of pushing my buttons and one of my weaknesses is that I let her. We both started arguing and ended with me telling her to edit her own paper, her taking her computer and storming out and yelling, “All you had to do was put your name on the editing sheet-THAT IS IT- three seconds to do something and you screwed it all up!”

A few hours later she came and found me and with the enormous amount of grit and determination Allison has coursing through every cell in her body she swallowed her pride and told me, “I changed some of the things back and ignored most of your suggestions. BUT you actually did have some good corrections that I kept. Thank you for editing my paper. Oh, and sorry for yelling at you.”

I picked my jaw up off the floor and gave her a hug. Not to long ago this would have gone a totally different way and been dragged out for days. While I could have tweaked her apology a little, the fact that she apologized on her own without any prompting is a big step. Huge steps have been made.

Irony

According to my children, I am an obsessive compulsive cleaner. According to me my children are messy lazy slobs. Of course we both disagree with each others perspectives of the other, but as I love to tell them I am the mom, the adult, the owner of the house, and maker of the rules so for now they have to do it my way. This opinion of each other leads to a constant debate in our home, as I am sure it happens in many homes, when a chore is given between “I did do (fill in job requested)!” and “You did not do (fill in job requested) well.” A simple task that if done immediately and correctly would take 5-10 minutes can be dragged out for hours. It is truly exhausting.

The other day when they were doing some of their jobs, several of them needed to use the vacuum. I was doing some things of my own and also needed to use the vacuum. As all of us used it and passed it around I noticed this;

According to our usual MO’s the loosely wrapped cord would be my kids doing, and the neatly wrapped cord would be mine. However, many years ago I decided it was annoying to wrap and unwrap the cord every time I used the vacuum that I keep in the closet and never look at. I started wrapping it as shown in exhibit A. A little bit messy but that is the way I prefer it. Such a slacker, I know. You would think my children-that cut every corner they can when doing their chores-would be all for wrapping the cord this way. Honestly, I’m surprised that it gets wrapped up in any way at all but all three of my children- every single one of them- neatly rolls the cord up as soon as they are done using the vacuum. They don’t put it away of course but they wrap the cord and tuck it in all nice and neat. AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I will say nothing though. I am not willing to find out what happens if I suggest my kids do something less… thorough. All my ‘harping and nagging’ over the years has taken root in their heads to wrap the vacuum cord. I can only hope that one day it will spread to throwing their trash away, or putting their dirty dishes in the dishwasher with out being told. Maybe it will spontaneously pop into their heads one day to put their dirty socks in the laundry bin instead of leaving it wherever they take them off. That hope keeps me from telling them, they don’t have to wrap the vacuum cord. That is irony at its finest for you.

Things That Made Me Smile

These two besties are just like sisters. Reese and Emilee were due within a few days of each other but Emilee came early so they are two weeks apart. They have been besties since then. They went to pre-school together but are in different school districts. They see each other at church and church activities and take riding lessons together and squeeze in as much play time as they can in between. They both love horses and talk about them for hours when they play. They both have similar interests in clothes (they grab the first thing they touch in the drawer regardless of if it matches or not) hairstyles (brush it just long enough to get it in a pony tail) and sense of adventure (they always climb, run, jump or fling themselves in, up, or down whatever they can). They are both the youngest and are often left hanging out together on Friday or Saturday nights while everyone else is off doing things with friends and their parents go out to dinner together. They are easy to have together and fun to watch. This picture is from the other day when they were at our house and decided they would practice putting ponytails in each others hair.

Allison has a very witty sense of humor that catches me off guard sometimes. She loves to make people laugh when she isn’t being a grump she is fun to joke around with. A few months ago I got a little to attached to a stupid farm game on my phone. The kids took notice and gave me a hard time about spending my time on something else besides them. Allison is also a very crafty and artistic person. She started making funny stories or pictures with stick figures. I am not very artistically gifted so I was impressed at how funny and detailed she could be with just stick figure drawings. One morning I found this funny little picture left for me next to my sink in the bathroom. It made me chuckle.

As mentioned a little earlier in this post, Emilee doesn’t concern herself to much with looks when getting dressed. Her first priority is comfort. Last week she attempted to add a functionality component to her Sunday outfit. Luckily her dad caught her before getting to church. When he asked her why she was wearing what she was wearing, she logically explained, “I put my clothes on that I want to wear after church under my church clothes so I can change faster when I get home.” When the look on her dads face looked like it was heading towards “I don’t think so” she quickly added, “And it keeps me warm.” He told her to trade her socks and pants for tights and get in the car to go.

Emilee is making the blog a lot this week. Another quirk of Emilee’s is her love of popcorn. Emilee is a ridiculously picky eater and has a HUGE sweet tooth so popcorn is one of her more healthy choices of snack. It also falls into the category of easy and fast for her to make by herself. Over time her love of popcorn has gotten to the point that she will eat nothing else if we don’t monitor or limit her popcorn intake. She eats all of the popcorn too, kernels included. I don’t know how she hasn’t cracked half her teeth chomping the un-popped corn. This popcorn trait is inherited from her dad. He likes his burned, she will eat it burned but prefers it not. Anyway, I digress. Most days when Ryan gets home Emilee has done her chores and home work and whatever else she needs to get done so she has popped herself a bag of popcorn and is sitting down to enjoy it while watching a show. He of course wants to have some and reaches for a handful. She turns into the equivalent of a dog that has possessive food issues. It got to the point that it was causing contentions between the two of them and we had to talk with Emilee about realizing there is plenty of popcorn to share. So far she doesn’t agree there is enough. So, the other day we were watching a movie together. Emilee popped some popcorn and came to snuggle me. A bit into the movie I told her thanks for sharing her popcorn with me and she was doing a good job at sharing. We continued watching and eating. I happened to glance over and realized that Emilee had been mining our popcorn the whole time! She had taken out all the butter pieces and put them in a separate pile on the other side of me so she could eat them after she ate what she left in the bowl ‘to share’ with me. Little stinker!

March Madness Gymnastic Meet

Allison had her second to last meet for this season, this month. She had her best meet yet! She placed first in her division on bar and floor, second on vault, third on beam. She won 1st place All Around for her division.

It was really fun to watch her and see her excitement at doing well. She puts a lot of time and effort into gymnastics and it is fun to see her enjoying it. She has one last meet at the end of this month. It is in Manhattan Kansas and it is a big event with multiple areas for each event happening at the same time. She is pretty excited.

The Valentine Box

It was recently the fun time of year when all (now most in a post COVID world) elementary students carry on the decades old tradition of decorating a box with as much hearts, glitter, pink and frilly decorations as they can and make a Valentine’s for each class member to exchange and put in each others box. For some brief back ground- Matthew made his first box in kindergarten and after that year decided a plastic grocery sack was good enough for his remaining elementary years. Allison let me help her make her box in kindergarten and then told me my help was no longer needed in the following years. She came up with a bigger and more elaborate design each year for her box. It never resembled a box or anything to do with Valentine’s other than having a slot to put the Valentine’s cards in. By third grade her reputation preceded her and the teachers gave her specific size limits on her box. Emilee has always gone the more traditional route and decorated a shoe box in the before mentioned way. She is the last kiddo that still makes a Valentine’s box for school in our house.

This year during one of our many days off of school in February she had a burst of creativity and brought me a drawing of what she wanted to do for her box the next week. We gathered the supplies she needed and she was excited and thrilled to make her picture come to life by making her box all by herself. She did a great job. She was very proud of it and it sat on the side table in the kitchen for the few days before it was time to take it to school.

They were told to bring it in sometime in the two days before the party. She had a bunch of other things to take the school the first day they could bring them in so she planned to take it the second day. The morning she was supposed to take it I reminded her not to forget it. She said, “No, I think I will just have people set the Valentine on my desk.” I of course asked her what she meant and she started to tear up. Come to find out, almost everyone else had brought their boxes in the day before and after seeing them Emilee thought hers wasn’t good enough. She said that most of the other boxes were, “more neat looking” than hers. Meaning-they were made by adults not kids, or ordered on the internet and ‘professionally’ made. Grrr, I was pretty annoyed. This isn’t the first time one of my kids has been embarrassed of something they did on their own because other kids parents do the assignments for them. It is a soap box of mine. Stupid parents. We talked about how her box was perfect the way it was and how awesome it was that she did it all by herself (because 1-she wanted to and had a great time doing it and 2- THOSE ARE THE DIRECTIONS-not have your parents make your box). I told her I loved her box and she should be proud of it. She told me,” You are just saying that because you are my mom so you have to like it.” Allison then chimed in and said that one of the reasons she made her boxes the way she did is so they would be unique and represent something she liked and told Emilee, “I love the way you did your box. The see through part is cool.” Allison’s words carried a lot more weight than mine. The silver lining of having sisters that fight more than it seems like they get along is that when one of them gives you a compliment you believe it because you know they have no problem insulting you. It was a sweet moment. I appreciated Allison helping her sister.

She took her box to school and was happy to report that her friend Millie told her is was an awesome box. I was helping at the party the next day and had the chance to see all the boxes myself. There were many boxes there that were clearly made by an adult or straight up bought on some bougie valentine website. It was ridiculous. I was happy to see the few that were home made by kids and made sure to tell each of them I loved their creativity. She still has her box sitting on her dresser and I will leave it there as long as she wants to instead of chucking it after a few weeks like I normally would.

Firsts

In our church the year you turn twelve you graduate primary and move to the youth program. Allison started Young Women’s. Each class has a presidency to help plan and run the activities. She is the secretary for her class right now. Allison loves growing up and being in charge of things so she is loving it. Most of their activities are on Tuesday night and she has gymnastics that night, so for now she won’t be able to go to a lot of them. She is still enjoying planning and going to the ones that aren’t on Tuesday’s.

The year they turn twelve is also the year they are old enough to go to the temple and do baptisms. She was able to go for the first time last week. It is fun to see her growing up and getting more responsibilities.

Matthew is turning 16 this year so he moves up to the Priest Quorum in our church. That means one of his new responsibilities is to bless the sacrament on Sunday. He did it for the first time a few weeks ago and his dad and grandpa did it with him. It was cool to see three generations blessing the sacrament together.

Allison’s Art Work

Allison’s Adventures

Allison is doing really well in school. Her goal it to work on her time management which makes me very happy. She is a person that evaluates herself and while she might not admit a mistake or shortfall, she makes a conscious effort to change or develop habits that she wants to work on.

In one of her classes they are making a large marble chute on a board. She asked me if I new which one was hers. All but one of them was contained to the board they were given to attach it to. One of them had extensions all over and was only on the board when she wanted to cross over to the other side. I guessed the least contained design and was right. Allison doesn’t like to be contained and that applies to all aspects of her life.

When I took some things into Emilee’s room the other day I found this note on the bathroom door that they share. It has been a while since I have found an Allison note. It made me chuckle. I especially love the ‘probably’ in parenthesis under “I WILL”. The two of them are working out some boundary/sharing issues with their shared bathroom.

Allison had another gymnastic meet this month. Her team took 1st place. She got her personal best in two events. She got a 9.3 on her floor and vault routine. She is progressing in all of her events and doing well. It is fun to watch her improve.

Boys vs Girls Communication

While I was at work the other day on a Thursday afternoon, I got a text from Lisa, she is Matthew’s friend Campbell’s mom. She asked me if I was ok with the schedule for Saturday for pictures and hanging out before and after the dance. Apparently that weekend-in two days, there was a high school dance that Matthew and Campbell were attending with a group of her friends. I told her I was glad she had reached out because I had no idea there was a dance coming up. After her text, I texted Matthew and asked him if he was going to a dance this weekend that he hadn’t mentioned to me yet. He said, “Yep.”

I am finding that Matthew will answer my questions if I ask him very specific questions multiple times. He isn’t much on details. Luckily Lisa and Campbell are, so they fill me in and tell me what is going on. He made it to all the places he needed to be to eat, take pictures, and dance. Campbell told me the dance was more fun this time because people actually danced.

Matthew also had parent teacher conferences. His communication continued to be brief for that as well. His entire presentation had fewer words than Emilee’s or Allison’s had on one page. Between his teacher and I we were able to drag enough information to know what we needed to know. I took a few snap shots of some of his artwork. I am not sure what the stick figure one is, when I asked he said, “An assignment.” 🙂