The apple doesn't fall far...or does it?

Seven takes after me...i.e., he is not as coordinated as his father and older brother.  Lately he has been riding his scooter outside a lot and, as all kids do when they're learning, crashing a lot. 

This has resulted in a lot of bumps and bruises, which have convinced Seven that he's QUOTE (and yes, this is a direct quote):  "falling apart!" UNQUOTE.  This entire week, all I've heard is that "this hurts" and "that hurts" and so on and so forth.

Mr. G:  Seven says he thinks he's going to throw up.

Me: Seven is a hypochondriac.

Mr. G:  Well we know where he gets that, don't we?

Me:  Of course we do, we know exactly which side he gets that from.

Seven:  I didn't get it from that side, I got it from when Dad was spinning me around.

That makes me feel a little better.  On a separate note, Seven is amazing about catching bugs and critters, see what he plucked off of our wall this morning:

Oh, the things One Year Old Babies like to do.

He keeps me smiling, that's for sure.

We're all in this...together.

I just got my bill from DirecTv.  In January, we got Space Chimps on pay per view (and already paid for it on the January bill).  Apparently you can watch it as much as you want within a 24 hour period (and you're allowed to record it on a dvd) but after that you have to pay again.

We did not know this.

Earlier this month we decided to put it on a dvd and the TV told us it was going to charge us again AS THE MOVIE IS STARTING.  We say NO NO NO and turned it off but somehow we must have hit the wrong button to say YES YES YES and it charged us again even though we stopped it right away.  

We just got a bill for watching it again.  Which we didn't do, we only watched it the once.

I called and explained the situation and the guy on the phone was pretty adamant that he couldn't help me.  It was basically tough tookies for us, because we pushed the button.  This really goes against everything DirecTV's ever been for us - usually, the customer service is awesome.  Your service is a bit static-ridden?  We'll fix it right away and how about three months of free movies?    Stuff like that.  This guy was not from the general DirecTv school of customer service.  I don't want a free ride, I just want not to be charged for something I didn't watch.

I told him in no uncertain terms exactly what had happened, that it had been a mistake, that we never watched the movie the second time and as a long time customer who always paid my bill on time and hardly ever got PPV movies, we didn't know and I would like a credit.  And if he couldn't help me, I wanted to speak with someone else.  They can tell if you watch the movie or not on their end, they could see we didn't watch it.    I wasn't mean but I was firm about it.

He put me on hold for a while, and finally came back on and told me he'd issue me a credit THIS TIME but I could only get a credit once every six months (which OK, hello, I haven't had a credit before, if it's once every six months and I've been a customer for years, just give me the stupid credit).  He informed me he'd be putting me on hold for a while while he took care of this.

After a bit, I could hear him again, somehow the phone had been taken off hold but he didn't know I could hear him.  I heard him talking to the guy sitting next to him as he said "I made a totally bonehead move and instead of issuing a credit, I hit the wrong button and charged her again!"  I said "Hello?" and he realized I was listening to him and all I had to say was "So you can see how easy it appears to be to hit the wrong button, right?"

That's all it took to change the whole thing.  I got my credit and there wasn't another snippy word about it.  

Here's a question for you:

While listening to the radio this morning in the car, one of the DJ's was talking about The Academy Awards this weekend and said "Heath Ledger is up for an Oscar.  He really deserves it."

I don't disagree that Heath Ledger should be posthumously awarded an Oscar, I thought his performance was terrific.  I disagree with the DJ saying "He deserves it."  The man died.  Yes, The Academy should honor his work but he is not with us in the present tense any longer and saying "he deserves it", that bothers me.

Is this too nitpicky?

It's coming:

The Madagascar Hissing Cockroach that Ten "won" at school today.  He called me in elation from his class because he needed my approval in order to bring It home.

How could I say no to "Please, Mom!  Please!  Please!!!!"  It must be every young boy's dream to have a monster like that.  At least it's only one, right?

I don't like it but we do have a vacancy as Delorious finally left us yesterday.  She hung on for a week and in her style, when we dumped her in the toilet to flush her, she shot down the tube and we didn't even get a proper goodbye.

All in sync.

It's been a nice weekend around here.  Valentine's Day was good, all my boys gave me cards.  Two were homemade, which were very special:

Ten's:

Seven's (front):

(back)

The Mister's:

When we saw the Mister's card, we laughed hard.  We're big on monkeys around here.  Ten kept laughing and laughing at it.  He was just rolling, and finally looked at me and said, "It's so funny, because it's so obviously a wig!"  

Of course.  I hope your weekend was as full of fun and laughs.

Today's Public Service Announcement.

If, by chance, when you are getting ready for bed at 12:30 at night because you feel asleep at about 8:30 and then woke up and somehow got absorbed watching Conan O'Brien pretend to do the mime walk with a fall behind a couch and you notice the armoire door is open at a strange angle and you think to yourself "Wow, someone really could get conked on the head by that baby if they got up to, oh, get someone out of his crib in the middle of the night, maybe I should close that" by all means GET UP off your lazy bum and close it.

You will really (really) be grateful you did at, oh, 1:33 AM.  I can promise you that.

(image from etonline)

Don't Go Breaking My Heart.

This is Ten's last year in elementary school.  He decided this year he didn't want to give out valentines.  It makes me a little sad that he's growing up.  I try really hard not to give in to the sadness.  Usually I'm fine.  But the not giving out of valentines, that's a little bit of a heart-twister. 

I'm not sure why.

I figured out the other day that after this school year, Ten and Seven will never be in the same school together at the same time again.  Maybe in college, but not until then.  And the Littlest Family Member will never be in school with Seven, at all.

Another little heart-twister.

I'm glad that it's a long weekend, and it's Valentine's Day.  I need a little family time.  The Littlest Family Member is sick and I think I'm getting his cold.  A good hanging out with my boys (all four of them) will do me good.

I hope you get to spend time with the ones you love, too.

By the way, Delorious is in a fishbowl now and seems to be doing pretty well.   Yay!

Update:  Ten came home with a big bag of valentines and said he wished he would have brought some.  So it's too bad he didn't bring any, but good that he still wished he would have.  He's not "done" with it all yet (schoolwise anyway, he's in the other room finishing up something for me, which I am pretty excited about).

De-De-Delorious.

Recently we added a new Mollie to our fishtank.  The Mister and I named her Delorious.  We sing her name to the Duran Duran song Notorious.  The boys hate it.  They say her name is Gumball but I refuse to call her that.

Anyway. when we got Delorious, we replaced about four plants in our tank.  I'm not sure if it's the plants, or if we had too many Anonymous Henchmen or what, but three of our fish have died in the past week.  Two were mollies.  

Yesterday I found Delorious stuck in the filter and thought she was dead.  When I got the net to fish her out, she swam away.  Great rejoicing!  She was alive.  Later I found her behind a rock and thought she was dead again.  Boo!  I went to fish her out and she again swam away.  Yay!

This morning I went to look at the tank and again she was stuck in the filter.  Boo!  I thought she was dead but she wasn't, just weak.  Yay!  

I stuck her in a tupperware container and stuck her in the kitchen because she kept getting pulled back towards the filter like the last swimmer trying to escape the Titanic or something. She is the last Mollie so I didn't want her to meet her end too soon.

*note:  duck for company

Now she seems fine.  I don't know if I can keep her in a tupperware forever, but I'm thinking maybe she just needs a different atmosphere or something.  

Look at her looking at you.

Colorful day.

The ducks live in the windowsill.  

Once a month, or so, they get a bath.

There are worse things to have to do.

Go, now, run, and see Coraline!

Ten and I went to see Coraline on Friday night.  Coraline is a book written by the fabulous Neil Gaiman, and the movie is fantastic.

Coraline is an eleven year old girl who moves, with her parents, to Oregon.  Her parents are up to their buttons, oops, eyeballs, in work, and Coraline feels ignored.

Coraline discovers a secret door in her house leading to another world that looks eerily similar to her own.  She meets quite a lot of people in that other world, who are similar, but different, from the people she knows already, like her Other Mother and Other Father.  

They pay her quite a bit of attention...but is it the right kind of attention?

Coraline's Other Mother really wants her to stay, to the point of actually kidnapping her real parents.  Coraline needs to figure out how to rescue her parents and return to her world.

If the Other Mother will let her, that is.

The movie looks amazing - all hand-made, animated puppets.  The sets and details of everything are beautiful and really just creative.  Everywhere you look, there are wonderful things to see.  I never once sat there and thought "Wow, those puppets are great!"  I just thought "Wow!  This is one terrific movie!"

The website for the movie is terrific also:  Coraline.  Also we loved the music, you can buy the soundtrack on iTunes.  This is for sure a movie we'll buy so we can watch it again and again.

We're loved this movie, but I definitely recommend it for older kids, there are a few scary themes (which isn't a bad thing, I would say about ten and up) but it's a great movie for grownups as well.   I had Ten read the book before we went so he would understand what was going on.

Go see it right away!

Mom is from back in the Stone Age.

We were watching American Idol tonight and it's Hollywood Week.  The contestants were shown receiving a pep talk from Barry Manilow.

Sari:  I don't know why they have Barry Manilow on there.  

Ten:  Who's Barry Manilow?

Sari:  He was popular when I was about your age, he's a singer.

Seven:  He's still alive?

Yes, he's still alive.

Someone Needs New Clothes.

The Littlest Family Member suddenly needs new clothes.  I bought him some new pajamas for his birthday in October and they are all the way up to his knees already. 

He doesn't look any taller, but I've also had to cut the elastic off of the bottom of all his sweatpants and turned them into beach baby capris (for BOYS, though, BOYS) because they were cutting off the circulation on his jumbo turkey calves.

Maybe if I hold off buying new clothes until it's warm, by then they can just be shorts?

Poor baby.