Ayris asked me to tell her a bedtime story last night so I told her I would, but that it would be a quick one because I was really tired. I decided that since I SUCK so much at making up bedtime stories even when I'm not tired, I would just borrow off of the theme from Rapunzel...
"Once upon a time, there was a girl. She did something bad...so her parents locked her in a tower. She stayed in the tower for 20 years with only birds for her friends. In that time, her hair grew really, really long. One day, she decided that she could tie her hair to something in the tower and then use it as a rope to climb down...and so she did, but once she got down there, she realized that she had no way of untying her hair at the top of the tower so she could be free. So she spent the next 14 days pulling her hairs out one by one until she had a great idea...she could climb back up the tower, get a pair of scissors and then climb back down and cut her hair...and so she did. Finally she was free! But she was lost...so she started walking and eventually found a house. She knocked on the door and an old woman answered. She told her she was lost and asked if she could stay the night."
I told Ayris that we could continue part two the next night. She had never heard of ending a story without finishing it but I convinced her that it was fine because I really needed to go to bed and that it would give me more time to come up with the second part.
So first thing, bright and early, Ayris comes bouncing downstairs asking me to finish the story. What?!? I thought I had until tonight?? No, she wants it now...so without having any time to construct a solid second half, I jump right in:
"So the girl wakes up in the morning and the old woman asks what her name is. She tells the woman she doesn't know because she was so young when her parents locked her in the tower. Well luckily, the woman has a computer, and the internet so she goes online to see if she can find some information. She finds out that the girls name is Sarah Connor. AND when she was just 3 years old, there was a guy going around kidnapping little kids from their houses, so her parents decided to put her in this faraway tower to keep her safe. They had planned to come back to her when they had caught the guy, but they ended up getting into a car accident and dying. So see Ayris, they really did love her...they were just trying to protect her by locking her in that castle. And the only reason they didn't come back for her was because they died."
Ayris: So what happened to the old woman, did she die too?
Me: Well yeah, eventually, and then Sarah got to keep her house.
At which point, Asher wants to tell his Spiderman story...so he does. When he's finished, Ayris wants to tell her story.
She tells the EXACT same story (at which point, I realize that I should have just said that a bad guy was taking kids in that town...not that he was breaking into homes! I want her to feel safe in her house) except from what I can tell, Santa is the bad guy and parents totally want to forget their children when they're teenagers (I can see her point here). When she gets to the part about the guy taking kids, she said that he goes into their house through the chimney and then he puts the little kids in his bag and leaves back through the chimney (sounds like Santa right?) and then instead of dying in a car accident, the parents move to MN (because apparently Sarah...I mean "Beautiful"...she changed the girls name too, is from Texas...) so at the end of the story, Beautiful walks from the rainforest in Texas (which is where her tower was) to MN to find her parents who live in house number 16. When Beautiful finds her parents, they ask how she found them. (Like they didn't want to be found?? I don't know.)
Me: So, why did Beautiful's parents move to MN if they knew she was in the tower?
Ayris: Because they COMPLETELY forgot about her!
Me: Do you really think a parent could forget about their child??
Ayris; She wasn't a child. She was a teenager.
Me: So you think parents can forget about their teenagers then?
Ayris: Yeah, cause by then they're old enough to take care of themselves. At least they are if they're as big as their mommy by then.
So moral of the story...I shouldn't be telling stories! I can see Ayris now retelling this story at school. And I never said I was the master of storytelling. That was not, nor will ever be on my mom resume. I tell the kids that I suck at telling stories and they still want me to do it. And normally, at the end of them, Ayris will tell me that it wasn't a good story. Well no kidding! I told you I wasn't good at telling stories! And then the story above...well I'm sure that could be viewed as horrible storytelling...horrible plot holes (how in the world did the old woman find out the girls name and that her parents stuck her in a tower, because if that was common knowledge, wouldn't someone have rescued her??), not to mention, most parents probably wouldn't add guys stealing children and parents dying in car accidents BUT aside from the part about taking the kids from their homes, I probably would have left those two parts in because 1) Why else would someone be stuck in a tower unless they were being protected from something (the bad guy)...it seems cruel otherwise!, 2) I don't hide from my kids that there are bad things in the world...bad people, bad accidents, etc. They need to know that the world isn't all good...and that if they run away from me in the store, someone could take them...or if they don't wear their seat belts and we get into an accident, they could die (this is a big one because none of the children want to wear their seat belts...)...if they run out into the street without looking, they could get hit...they're not invincible just because they're 3 and 4...if anything, they're more susceptible because they don't know any better without being taught...so in that respect, I feel like the above story is acceptable...just not the part about the guy coming into the house, because the point isn't to make my children fearful...just aware and knowledgeable.
Anyway, just thought I'd write that one down. I figure when the kids are older and complaining about how horrible I am and how many faults I have, I can just direct them here and tell them I've been documenting my faults the whole time...and that having a curfew of "when it gets dark outside" (so like 9:30 or so in the summer and 5 or so in the winter??) and not getting their licenses until their 18 (I'd go older but apparently I have no control after that age!) isn't my being mean or at fault...it's my protecting them...and in essence, I think those restrictions are far more lenient than being locked in a tower...which I would TOTALLY be willing to do if I had one nearby. Perhaps I will just add that onto my already ridiculous list of things that must be met before buying another house (no attic, 8+ft tall fence with no gate so that no one can enter (Chris also mentioned that we couldn't exit either but I'm fine with that), no ponds or lakes or forest full of trees anywhere behind/near our house, preferably not three stories...less points of entry that way...all rooms must be on the second level (it's quite difficult to find a house with 5/6 bedrooms on the second floor!)...anyway, the list goes on and on...so much so that Chris says even once we can afford to move out, we'll never be able to find this house because it doesn't exist =) Don't you people wonder how I'm going to raise 4/5 children with all this crazy that's in my head? I try to keep the crazy from them as much as possible and think I'm doing a pretty good job of it so far =)
Okay, on to other stuff. Adler has some kind of head cold...he's stuffed up and at the same time, has a runny nose...he HATES it when I go near him with the saline nose drops and nose aspirator...he freaks out and starts screaming bloody murder...so I decided to go online and see if there were any other options for congestion...this is an excerpt from the homeopathic site (www.pollywogbaby.com):
"Once you have used saline spray don't be tempted to use a baby nasal syringe. The suction these provide, as well as the rubbing of the syringe itself on the nasal membranes, can be irritating which in turn can cause even more inflammation and worsen or prolong the congestion."
"An old fashioned way to clean out infant nasal congestion was to gently suck the mucus out by placing your mouth over the nostrils. If you do try this method be sure to suck only very gently and for only a few seconds at a time so your baby can breathe, keeping in mind that he can only breathe through his mouth."
So, they want me to literally suck the snot out of my baby's nose with my mouth??? Gross. I can see how this might have been helpful in the dark ages before bulb syringes but seriously? What is the difference between the suction from a bulb syringe and my mouth? Last time I checked, it's not like a bulb syringe had the capability to go all Hoover like and suction at 12 amps per squeeze. I love my baby ALOT but I'm pretty sure, I feel completely fine with using a syringe if necessary. We can just add this to the list of horrible things I do as a mother:
Bad storyteller: Check!
Uses Bulb Syringe: Check!
Hates to go out into the snow and secludes self and children in the house all winter long: Check!
ACTUALLY, I must say, I went out and played in the snow for a good 30 minutes the other day and it wasn't that horrible. There's something about being able to throw big balls of snow at my children that makes me feel better about the whole thing. I kid, I kid. It was fun...but it wasn't that cold out which made a difference. None the less, I felt pretty rockstar...I felt cool...basically I felt like the daddy!
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