Creative Punishment

Have you ever sent your kids to bed without dinner? I've always felt that was too extreme (even though my husband insists he survived to adulthood despite an occasional missed meal). I've been known to slip the kid a glass of milk or a piece of bread when such punishment is warranted.

This, however, is something I can really sink my teeth into. The dramatic flourishes are what makes it so wonderful..."serve on steel prison tray."

My eldest sent me this link and it is too good not to share. The chef describes the recipe as such: "Barely nutritional meal suitable for all miscreant children."

Love it!

Your Kids Time out Lunch

Health Care DMV Style

Haircut

Before

We let the hair grow a bit more than usual this winter. It was cold and mom was busy getting ready for 5 December birthdays, 4 college kids coming home for Christmas and a partridge in a pear tree.

After

Quite handsome, isn't he? He even looks more mature.

These "before and after" shots are what most people see. You, my dear readers, get the inside story:

I couldn't help myself

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

You wouldn't eat a kitten, would you?

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has a new campaign to stop us from eating fish. They're re-naming fish. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried, so I'll just quote from their own website:

...Whoever was in charge of creating a positive image for fish needs to go right back to working on the Britney Spears account and leave our scaly little friends alone. You've done enough damage, buddy. We've got it from here. And we're going to start by retiring the old name for good. When your name can also be used as a verb that means driving a hook through your head, it's time for a serious image makeover. And who could possibly want to put a hook through a sea kitten?

Ask the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to stop promoting sea kitten hunting.

Aha! The REAL reason behind the campaign to rename fish sea kittens. (You may guffaw now.)

It turns out fishing is evil because it hurts the widdle sea kitties to have hooks driven through their furry (I mean scaly) little heads.

I suspect their campaign won't work too well on grown-ups who remember fondly the lazy Sunday afternoons spent torturing sea kittens with their dads then taking the carcasses home to their moms in order to indulge in their murderous cannibalistic rituals of devouring flesh. BUT the campaign isn't really designed for adults; it's for kids!

C'mon kids, let's go make our own virtual "sea kittens" on the "create your own sea kitten" page. Or let's read a bedtime story like this one called Playing Chase: (Again, I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried)...

Fred the Flounder is a sea kitten with an eye for fun and a nose for mischief.

Growing up, he spent all his time playing chase with the other sea kittens in his school.

But overfishing has left him morose and alone.

Now he just endlessly chases his tail, thinking of a happier time.

Fin.

Something tells me someone at PETA has a sense of humor.

Twitter is stealing my life!

The best way to learn a new skill is to jump in with both feet and just give it a try! Or so I thought with some of the new technology that keeps flirting with my time.

Not too very long ago I signed up with Twitter. Not a big deal, the sign up takes just a couple of minutes. I had one friend already on Twitter. From blogs I found a few more friends.

Then I discovered Tweet Catholic. From that list I found some really cool Catholics that I started following. One such guy, is Paul Camarata, his bio states, "A family man, neurosurgeon, and Catholic podcaster." He sounded way too cool, so I decided to follow him. He runs an amazing website, The Saint Cast, which has podcasts about the saints and a really awesome youtube video called "The Saint Song."


Once I started adding a bunch of folks from that list, many of them started following me! The busy rambling of everyone's Tweets looked incomprehensible at first. Then I began to see that some of them were responding to other's Tweets, signified by the @ at the beginning of the Tweet.

Not sure if anyone is actually reading your Tweets? I found out if you ask a question, you can often get an answer, to which the polite Tweeter responds with a "Thank you!"

Still, there are confusing combinations of letters and symbols, and I noticed the hash symbol, #, appearing quite frequently before the letters "tcot." What could that mean? Some secret language? I Tweeted and asked the question and was told it means "top conservatives on Twitter." They also have their own list, which I scanned for people I'd either heard of or people who sounded interesting. I preferred to find people with whom I had something in common, so I looked for those who listed "Catholic," "homeschooler," "stay at home mom," "humor," "veteran." I found some really interesting people there too!

I tried to resist the urge to follow tons of celebrities that I really had nothing in common with, though I did break down and follow Tony Hawk. Don't ask me why. I don't skateboard and none of my kids do either. I've never played any of his video games or worn any of his clothes. (Does he design clothes?) But when I read his bio: "...professional skateboarder, dad, videogame character, husband, ceo, kid chauffeur," I thought he sounded like a fun guy to follow. I especially liked the part about being a dad and kid chauffeur. Likewise, I followed the two creators of Twitter, Jack Dorsey, and Biz Stone, because I figured they could give me some hint of how this Twitter thing is really supposed to work. It still feels like speaking a foreign language to me.

From the tcot list, I found some interesting conservative celebrities, like Gov. Mike Huckabee, Dick Armey, Newt Gingrich, and Karl Rove. I felt a rush of adrenaline when Karl Rove started following MY updates. Heady stuff, this Twitter. I must've gotten a bit carried away with all the celebrity following, or perhaps I just thought it was a Pepsi logo, but I clicked on "Follow" Barack Obama. A couple hours later, I had second thoughts and decided to "unfollow" him, but only after BO had started following me! Hmmm...maybe he'll learn something from my pithy political commentary. (Dream on...)

I gotta go now...Pope Benedict is following me and he just asked what #tcot means.

You can follow my twitterings at http://twitter.com/militantmom.

Pelosi and the Pope, recap

Hop on over to Fr. Longenecker, a (gasp!) married priest in North Carolina to see what he posted yesterday.

Pelosi and the Pope

Got to love Thomas Peters over at American Papist.

Check out todays' Papist Picture of the Day - 02/18/09

A Meditation on Children: By the Numbers

Author's note: After reading my friend, Philospher-Mom's, posting on Answer to Challenge Math Problem for Gestational Genuises , I started thinking about some child-related math questions of my own. This is the result.

Last year, a local family magazine ran an article on large families. They wanted to know funny stories and interesting anecdotes that would make people-who-drive-normal-cars-that-still-hold-their-entire-family laugh. They wanted to know things like: how many loads of laundry we do each week (10-12), how many socks are included in that set (168, plus or minus one, since there's always an odd number), how many gallons of milk we drink each week (5-7, same number of loaves of bread), and how many times we've forgotten kids at various locations throughout the planet (Editor's note: deleted for space).

They were too tasteful to ask more personal questions regarding pregnancy and bodily fluids--after all, it is a family magazine!

But you, gentle readers, are eager to know these intimate details, so I have decided to hold nothing back. So pour yourself a cup of coffee, turn down Oprah, and enjoy the math.

How about the total length of time I've been pregnant? 76 months. This includes 8 full-term pregnancies, 1 miscarriage and 2 adoptions. (Math answer: that's 6 years and 4 months).

How long have I been a nursing mom? A whopping 111 months! (That's more than 9 years...and that includes a 14+ hour military transport flight from Naples, Italy to the U.S. via Germany and Iceland with me in uniform and a newborn infant whose diapers I changed on the in-flight tray table...remember that next time you dine at 30,000 feet!)

How long have I been a homeschooling mom? Over 17 years.

We currently have 3 in college. We will have between 1 and 4 in college every year for the next 16 years (assuming all go to a 4-year college after high school).

We currently have 5 teenagers.

I've driven a 15-passenger van for 13 of my 21 years of marriage.

If you add up my kids' ages, you'll find we have 113 kid-years' experience as parents. (Editor's note: we should be honest and subtract the first 2 years of our youngest 2 children's lives because they didn't come home to live with us until they were 2 years old). O.K. That makes 109 kid-years!

So that should make me some kind of authority on parenting, right? All I know is this: before I had kids, I thought I had time. Now that I have kids, I know I don't have time. Before I had kids I thought I knew what love was. Now that I have kids, I do know what love is. Before I had kids, I thought I had patience. Now I have kids, and I'm just beginning to learn the meaning of patience.

Finally, my top ten rules learned after 109 kid-years of parenting:

1. Keep your sense of humor.

2. If it stinks, wash it.

3. "Because I said so," is a good enough reason.

4. They are cuter when they're asleep.

5. No matter how much we try to deny it, the fact is, we do become our mothers.

6. This, too, shall pass.

7. We need these kids as much as they need us.

8. (Often said 9 months later): "What were we thinking?"

9. Tell God (or your mother) your plans; it'll make them laugh.

10. If all else fails, see #1.

copyright Debbie Nowak 2008

Life with Ten Kids: Am I Crazy, or What?

Why would anyone have ten kids in today's world? Prices are skyrocketing, cities are crowded and raising kids is fraught with peril. People are astonished when I tell them I have ten kids. I often hear, "You must be crazy," or, "You must be rich," or, "You must be a saint." I thoroughly acknowledge my lack of sanity. I sometimes feel rich, (in love, that is). I rarely, if ever, feel like a saint.

You have to be a bit crazy to have a family numbering in the double digits, requiring a minimum of two hotel rooms when traveling, and always needing additional pages when filling out forms that list household members.

When maneuvering my 15-passenger van through the McDonald's drive-through one day, the woman handing me my happy meals commented, "That's a big van."

I replied, "Mini-vans are for wimps."

I didn't intend to offend. It was supposed to be funny, but she retorted, "I drive a mini-van."

Oops.

As for feeling rich, every time I pay the mortgage bill, I tell my husband, "We get to live in the house for another month!" He doesn't appreciate hearing that, but I feel a sense of accomplishment each month when I mail the check.

When I was a little girl, I used to love visiting Grandmother in Paducah, Kentucky. She was rich. She had silver candlestick holders. She would laugh at me when I told my friends she was rich. When I grew up and saw with adult eyes the tiny house she and Grandfather lived in their entire married life, I understood why she laughed. But she was still rich in my mind.

Christmas morning at our house means Mass, followed by breakfast and opening presents. The younger kids get tremendous joy from wrapping their old toys and recycling them as gifts to other family members. The older kids get somewhat annoyed at this, ("Hey, I gave you that last year!"), but, they're pretty good sports for the most part.

Birthdays at our house mean twelve voices singing, "Happy Birthday to You," at fever-pitch until the dishes in the china cabinet rattle. If we were smarter, we'd have spread out the birthdays so we had one a month, but our anniversary is in March, and we now have five birthdays in December. December is one big party at our house.

After our eighth child was born, we took a job in England. There is nothing like being an American in another country to make you feel rich. We began to think seriously about adding to our family through adoption. I felt like the richest woman in town when my husband said he was willing to adopt one, then two more children.

When people tell me, "You must be rich," I smile and nod, with a wink at the kids. I feel rich.

As for being a saint-certainly not. I know more than anyone (except, perhaps my kids), how little patience I have, how many mistakes I make, and how often I fail at being a good parent. The great thing about having ten kids is they're teaching me patience and they're teaching me how to be a good parent because they give me so many opportunities to practice.

And one of the best perks of having so many kids is that if one, two, or even three of them are mad at me at any given moment, I still have at least a 70% approval rating. Maybe I am a saint after all.