Playground for Parents who Hate Kids

Yesss! Heather Justesen chased the Kindle formatting demons away with her mad skills! Now that the PDF monster is off my back, I'm now pursuing regular old WORD publication on my own, with the kindly offered resources that have dropped neatly in my inbox. THANK YOU! I love you for caring. (I love you anyway, but caring is a bonus!)
Okay, so, Christmas is all about loving and caring and hugging and sharing and taking your kids to the playground in spite of the snow. Right? But any parent who would take their child to this playground would most likely dress their little ones in shorts and t-shirts and pour water on the slide before sending the child down in order to make their bums stick to the metal. I mean, look at that drop at the end of the slide! It's got to be two feet tall or more! If a little person is barreling down and there is no one to catch them at the end, which any parent who lets their child play on this slide would not be, then the child falls their entire body length to the ground.
Some fun.
Maybe they aren't done yet... maybe there's a giant inflatable pillow installation pending... or a hidden camera for a candid camera TV show.
What was the most memorable play experience you had as a child?
And Merry Christmas, one and all... I love Jesus.

Running Fans and Feet = shortened stature

It made perfect sense for my sons to run their fans on summer nights. After all, their bedrooms are upstairs, and heat rises.
The whirring fans also brought back memories of when I was a girl sharing a double bed with my two little sisters in muggy New Jersey. We always ran the fan on hot nights, where the humming blades and gentle, artificial breeze were like a lullaby.
Who knew it could be dangerous? I never suspected, until my big 14-year-old Brian came limping down the stairs a few weeks ago. "What's wrong?" I asked.
"Well," he said, sinking into a chair. "I woke up in the night because my foot hurt. When I flipped on my lamp, I saw that somehow I'd stuck my foot out of bed and caught it in the fan." He indicated a huge blood blister under his big toenail, which is part of his size 14 feet, which are stuck onto his 6' 3" body.
Bad Mother Moment: I'd let my older son use the fan with the broken safety cover, so his younger brother could have the fan with covered blades. I never thought of my tall son's legs being long enough to stretch out of bed far enough to be shortened by half a dozen spinning plastic blades.
I marched right up the stairs and took the faulty fan from my son's room. I gave him a safety covered fan, and encouraged him to set it on his desk. But then... his desk is beside his bed. You don't think his fingers are small enough to fit through the safety cover slots, do you?

They go potty in heaven, don't they?

We're in the middle of "The Mormon Miracle Pageant" here in little old Sanpete County, Utah. The outdoor spectacle of volunteer actors in period costumes is in its 42nd year on lovely Manti, Utah Temple Hill.
One thing that pageant goers probably don't know is that before each performance is a devotional for cast members. It takes place on Temple Hill behind the costume building. There are some wonderful speakers at those meetings, interspersed with those who do the best they can with the talents they've been blessed with.
During one meeting, my 8-year-old came to me with a frown on his face and said, "The man wouldn't let me use the bathroom."
"What man?" I asked, my protective Mommy hackles rising.
"The one who says when we can go get our costumes."
So I went to talk to the bathroom-maximum-security guard. With a voice that could freeze watermelons, I said, "My son told me you wouldn't let him use the bathroom."
"Oh, I'm sorry, when was this?"
"During cast devotional."
"Oh. Well, you see, if I leave the bathrooms open, then all the teenagers go in there and won't come out."
"My son is eight," I said, smoke coming out of my ears.
"Oh, I'm really sorry. Look, if you could come with him next time, then that would really help with crowd control. I really apologize," the man said, looking very apologetic.
"Okay," I said, my hackles smoothing down. I was glad, too, because raised hackles is not a good look for me.
I walked away, reflecting on the lesson that if you really want to reach your goal, it helps to take a parent with you. And there is One who can get through any barrier, from writing block to basic mortal needs. And if I, as an imperfect mortal, love my son enough to push aside my non-confrontational fun-loving yellow personality to confront Bathroom Security, how much more does Father in Heaven love us? I'll bet he even has a bathroom key right there in his pocket.

Dogs Tails Are Super Glued To Their Butts

It was the stuff of dreams; my 8-year-old landed the dog's part in the school play. I'm not saying that he drew a bad part, I'm saying that he got the part of a dog. Since he had his lines down pat, ("Rowf, rowf, rowf,") all he needed was a costume. I made the mistake of asking Michael what he wanted the costume to look like. "I want a long tail."
I didn't have the time or material to make a full body dog costume, especially since there's no one after Michael to grow into the suit. I was all about ease and thrift.
"Is a pipe cleaner tail long enough?" I asked hopefully.
You would have thought I'd punched my son in the stomach by the look on his face. "No, Mom, that would look stupid." Ah, those halcyon kindergarten days when imagination could make popsicle sticks into the coolest cell phone you ever saw.
"How about wearing your old cow suit?" I asked. "It has spots, just like a dog."
"Those are COW spots," Michael informed me. "They're different than DOG spots."
Now I knew. But I didn't have the time, material, or energy to make a full body dog costume, especially since there's no one after Michael to grow into the suit. I was all about ease and thrift.
Michael and I made a trip to the store to see what doggish ensemble we could both agree on. In the boys' department, we were both delighted to find a brown hooded sweatshirt on sale for half off. Michael said it was warm, and I said it was the right price. We looked all over for brown sweatpants in his size, but we couldn't find any. The brown cargo pants were too big. But wait... what's this? Black sweatpants, and they fit!
"But, Mom, they don't match."
"Come here, Michael, I want to show you a secret." (This is one of the best mommy tactics ever for gaining cooperation, at least temporarily.) I led my curious son over to the craft section where we riffled through rectangles of felt. We unearthed brown and black pieces that matched his new clothing so well, they could have been from the same dye lot.
"Look," I said, holding up one of each against the hood of his jacket. "You could have one brown ear, and one black ear."
Michael's eyes lit up. "Then I could be a brown and black dog!"
I sagged with relief. "Yes, you could."
"And I could have a black tail with brown spots."
I tensed up again. "A short tail," I said.
Michael shook his head. "A long, furry tail."
I sighed and bent over the felt rectangles again. I had really hoped I wouldn't have to break out the sewing machine this time around. I picked up some extra brown and black felt squares and paid for our purchases.
When we got home, I went to work. The ears were easy, especially since after I cut them out, I safety pinned them to the sweatshirt hood. Then I got busy sewing brown felt together, bending a wire to fit inside, and wrapping the wire with stuffing that tapered to a point. Then I top-stitched the felt squares along the stuffing, leaving the extra hanging down from the tail tip to where it met with the thick part of the tail near the body.
Okay, if you're not following this, don't try any more. The point is, there was some fabric hanging down from the tail that we cut into fringe, or hair if you prefer. Michael was delighted. So was I. (We were almost done!)
Michael glued black spots on the brown tail with a hot glue gun as fast as I could cut the spots out. When he finished, he admired the tail, then asked, "How are we going to keep it on?"
This was when it was most tempting to point out to my son that the pipe cleaner tail would have been far superior in the attaching department of costumery, but it wouldn't have done any good.
As I studied the problem, Michael said wistfully, "Real dogs' tails are super glued to their butts."
And with that simple statement came the laughter, and the sudden gladness that Michael and I had worked together to make his costume into one that he felt good wearing, and still meet the quality of being one that I could tolerate putting together.
Finally, with a belt and a few slits in the felt-from-heaven (no fraying, so no hemming needed) we buckled that tail on Michael's behind, and his performance resulted in gales of laughter from the delighted audience.
That perfect dog tail now resides in our costume box. Anybody need a Fido outfit any time soon? No super glue required.

Why Energetic Children Should Not Have Alarm Clocks!

When he was six years old, my youngest son begged for an alarm clock. I figured it would be a passing fancy. What does a six year old need to get up for, except to pee, and there’s a built in alarm clock for that.
For a while, it was a novelty. He made it ring over and over, moving the alarm indicator and then the watch hands to enjoy another full minute of clatter. I asked him to close his bedroom door.
One early summer morning I even heard the distant “dingaling” of his alarm clock and climbed up the stairs to turn it off. Michael lay with eyes closed, mouth slightly open, obviously dreaming of a drawer full of silverware doing the hokey pokey.
Even when his room fell silent, he didn’t stir.
Definitely a passing fancy.
But when he turned seven, something happened. He came into my room at 3:30 am. Thinking he’d had a bad dream, I instructed him to go to the bathroom before he got in bed with his dad and me. I didn’t want to risk his internal alarm clock failing to wake him up when he reached critical bladder mass.
It was only after he finished the night with his feet in my back and his hard skull doing its best to knock me unconscious that I found out the truth.
He’d purposely set his alarm clock for 3:30 a.m. “I wanted to get up earlier than anyone,” he said.
The next night, we talked about him not setting his alarm to go off so early.
“But I still want to get up before everyone else,” he said.
“Dad goes to work at 6:00 a.m. so why not set your alarm for 5:30?”
He grinned and set his alarm.
And was up at 3:30.
This time he didn’t come into my room.
He had a bath.
And played on the computer.
And watched a movie.
He forgot to eat until I got up at 7:00 and offered him breakfast.
And he went to school happy.
That night, we all got ready to go to the high school to watch his big brother play basketball. Michael wasn’t sure he wanted to go. “I might fall asleep.”
You know, Michael, maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing.