Earnest Parenting

FFYF: The Spritzinator Edition

Amy — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 05:30:16 +0000

Welcome again to Fun For Your Friday! This week, FFYF has officially become a blog carnival. See below for some hi-stinkin-larious submissions. First, here’s my giggle for the week. Back when we first got the puppy, we knew that there would be a few messes along the path to housebreaking. So, we purchased an enzyme cleaner with a long name. I got the gallon version, and put it in a smaller spray bottle. In the course of life, the cleaner became known simply as Spritz. This most likely has something to do with parental directions to simply spritz the area in question. Now that I think of it, Spritz is used both as a noun AND a verb around here. Annnnnyhow. This week Captain Earthquake (age 7) agreed to clean up a little accident we’d found. “Where’s the Spritz??” he shouted. “I need paper towel!” We located the items in question and he marched off to clean. I could hear him talking to himself as he worked. The voice became louder as he returned to the kitchen. Suddenly, he sprang back into the room, shouting “I’m the Spritzinator!”

And without further ado, here is the March 5 edition of Fun For Your Friday.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Musical Accord (Spoof Contract) posted at Mad Kane’s Humor Blog I laughed until I cried over this one.

swagat presents I am what I am!! posted at Its all in here Any college student wanting to know how to apply for a scholarship can look here for guidance.

Josanne Anthony presents Can My Marriage Be Saved? posted at A Chocolate Bouquet I think Josanne’s husband should let her win this one.

Regina Scharf presents How to find a husband ? the Brazilian way posted at DEEP BRAZIL I’m glad to be out of the dating scene. Some of those techniques are work!

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the March 12 edition of Fun For Your Friday using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Share |

Technorati tags:
fun for your friday, blog carnival.

FFYF: Weekend Break Edition

Amy — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 06:34:38 +0000

Hullloooooo, Friends!

I’m heading off to do some sewing this weekend; one of my favorite activities. Just think: hour upon glorious hour in front of my sewing machine!

The heart sings in anticipation.

So…how about you? Anything fun planned for this weekend? Share with the group! How about you play along on Fun For Your Friday? Share a joke, blog post, video, or photo telling about your weekend plans.

Next week when I write the new FFYF post, I will go back and close the previous edition. At that time all legitimate links are converted to .html, which means you get some link love just for playing along. How’s that for a bonus?

Links that are spam or inappropriate to the spirit of the game will be deleted. If you just link to a commercial web site, that’s not in the spirit of the game. Please link to something that makes you laugh. Or at least smile.

Special note!! This is the last week that FFYF will appear with the Mr. Linky format. We are changing over to a carnival format and will be on Blog Carnival.com for anyone interested in playing along.

photo credit: jelene

Is Excellence No Longer Valued?

Amy — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:36:31 +0000

The older boys have been complaining about our insistence that they go to Scouts every week, and also that we expect them to participate in Tae Kwon Do. When I ask what’s so terrible about either of these activities, there’s not much of an answer. The Mercenary told me about 6 times today: “All we do at Scouts is play a game, do bookwork, and then go home.” Apparently this is a travesty.

Tae Kwon Do is a sport that the whole family can enjoy together which is why we started it. We’ve told the boys that they need to be in some kind of athletic activity. If they want to do a seasonal sport, no problem. They can drop the TKD and pick it back up after the season. The point is to be active in SOMEthing.

There’s plenty of complaining on Scout or TKD days, then they actually go and come home smiling. Interestingly, they rarely talk to Hubby about any of this. I’m the one who gets sucked into the complaining on a weekly basis. (For the record, the younger boys also complain-vociferously-anytime there’s an activity scheduled for them.)

The whole thing puzzles me. What is so horrible about being in a sport or in Scouts? They seem to be objecting to having to leave the house more than anything else.

We’ve worked hard at making our home a sanctuary for the family; perhaps we’ve created monsters as well. It’s great that they love to be here…but they’re here all day every day with the homeschooling, so Hubby and I agree that it’s very important for them to have activities outside the house.

If I understand the Scout objection, one thing they dislike is having to write down what they’re learning in their record books. Both of the older boys have resisted writing all their lives and regard any writing requirement with disdain. I keep telling them that like many worthwhile pursuits, the rewards often come a little later, after they’ve put in some time and effort.

And that’s what it really comes down to, in my opinion: effort. For some reason, the very idea that an activity requires them to put forth effort and dedication is repugnant. Is this just part of the age? Are all boys who are eleven/nearly twelve so unwilling to invest themselves in something? Is this part of our culture now? I don’t remember ever being allowed to complain about an activity growing up. If I’d signed up, I was expected to follow through with my commitments.

I know it’s my job to push them, and I will continue doing it, but I have difficulty knowing exactly how much to push some days. It doesn’t feel good to be treated like an oppressor so often.

At the same time, I just can’t bring myself to let them drop out of everything and become slugs.

So here we sit, staring at each other across this…chasm. Workaholic vs. Slug Wannabees.

I keep telling them, “Some day you’ll thank me.” I really believe that; I just don’t like thinking about how far off that someday may be.

Fun For Your Friday: Zoo Memories

Amy — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 17:32:51 +0000

Today at Earnest Parenting all the females are lying around recovering. I’m still down with the knee injury (MRI tomorrow! hooray!!!) and the puppy got fixed yesterday. Although I think it’s safe to say she’d tell you she got broken. Everything was fine, then we took her to the bad place, now she feels rotten. Poor, baby. Turns out she’s a pretty tough cookie. She won’t cry if she’s hurting, she just trembles. Poor, poor, baby.

Sooooo, in the meantime we’re looking over happy photos from last year and having treats and snuggling and holding verrrrry still. Keely didn’t attend the zoo trip with us last summer, but the memories are still great and make me smile. We met my parents and spent the day together. It was one of those really hot days that can really feel oppressive, but the zoo had water spritzers strategically placed and that made everything wonderful as far as the boys were concerned.

Surprisingly, they posed for this picture to commemorate the day. (They’re usually fairly camera-shy.)

So what about you? Any fun memories from the summertime to help carry you through the cold dark days of February? How about you play along on Fun For Your Friday? Share a joke, blog post, video, or photo that makes you laugh (family friendly, please) with the world. Trust me, you’ll be glad you did.

!– beginning of export. owner: EarnestOne, postid: 19Feb2010 –>

Fun For Your Friday Participants

1. Debbie
2. Ed Harris

3. Maru Gujrat
4. muhyar

Learn more about Fun For Your Friday here.
View More Fun For Your Friday Participants
Get The Code

What Do You Do When Your Child Lies?

Amy — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 04:55:30 +0000

Tonight when Hubby got home from work he happened to notice that two sweets he’d put in the cupboard yesterday were gone. I’d noticed them mid-day myself. Now the shelf was empty. No one had asked me about eating them, and I hadn’t done it. I had the last slice of carrot cake, not the sweets.

Hubby asked each boy if he’d eaten them, and all denied it. It’s mathematically impossible for all of them to have been telling the truth, so he took a look around to see if there was any evidence. Sure enough, two wrappers turned up in the boys’ bathroom wastebasket.

Hubby asked each boy again, and this time one did admit to eating one sweet. All denied having the second one.

Aaaaand that’s where we are. If there’s one thing we really hate as parents, it’s dishonesty.

We do work fairly hard to limit the amount of sugar the boys eat daily, so I understand that they may feel like it’s a forbidden fruit. However, they do get plenty. The sweets in question are usually saved for the bedtime snack that is served daily. They also get a some small candies every day when schoolwork is finished. Throw in the daily breakfast cereal and occasional cookie, and I think you’ll agree that there’s no deprivation going on here. And yet, a boy felt compelled to take without permission; then he lied about it. In the course of the investigation it became apparent that his twin had also been disobedient. Very sad.

Several consequences were considered: locking up sweets, not having any sweets in the house, going for a certain time without sweets, losing precious screen time….we’re not sure what would actually send the message that lying is really really really not okay. If the boy had admitted to eating the sweet, we would have frowned and told him that we don’t like them sneaking sugar and that they need to eat more fruits and vegetables. Instead, his dishonesty takes it to a new level.

In the meantime, what would you do? This isn’t the first time that we’ve been lied to, and I wager it won’t be the last. (I did give birth to humans after all.) It’s just so sad that they feel like they have to lie to us. Both Hubby and I want them to have a habit of honesty, especially with their own parents.

Hubby finally decided to tell them to come up with their own consequence. They have to choose something serious enough to help them remember to be honest in the future. I guess we’ll see tomorrow what they suggest.