LOST A SOCK

The deciding time

I have this tendency to overthink and overanalyze...everything.  I am not known for jumping into things quickly, (unless we are talking about vehicle purchase, jabs self in head with pencil,) without a good deal of thought and caution. 

I've been blogging for more than three years.  I began, thinking I would document bits and pieces of our daily life, and have a place to share pictures with family and friends.  I was sort of asleep to most of who I was at the starting line, and have grown into myself in such a comfortable, exciting way over the years.  My kids have grown much, and I've documented that.  We've had ups and downs, for sure.  And in the same, I've had to remain lip-zipped on a number of important fronts because I do blog using my real name, and most people who know us know at least that this site exists.

I've felt, over the last few months, that we've reached a new pace - as a family, and for me in my own role here.  My hands have become infinitely more full now with three children, and as I push for little to littler television around here, soon-to-begin homeschooling and keeping up with everyone's daily needs- mostly on my own as Kevin works so much of the time - I've been struggling for months to continue writing in this forum.  I have to let the kids watch tv or play play-doh or whathaveyou for a couple hours while the baby naps and my house goes generally to hell, just so I can get an entry published.  And I've been wrestling with a nagging feeling for several months, that it's time to go.

On the other hand, of course, I adore the relationships I've made in this online community of bloggers.  And how nice it is to post baby pictures, vacation pictures and the like and have friends give pats on the back, and advice, and support.  Who could ask for anything better?  Gosh I would miss that.

There are so many reasons to keep finding a way, and so many reasons to have one less thing on my plate, even if it is Me Time. 

I am going to step back from this place for the next month to sort things out a bit.  I plan to create an actual daily schedule that will work for my family, and prioritize in a way that mothers with young children are well-versed in doing.  And I'm going to see what it feels like to be away from here, and if it really is something I can part with. 

Lord knows I'm not looking for the answer for How To Do It All, And Well, in this place, but I couldn't dissappear for a long while without saying something first. 

 

My mother, she makes things so difficult... 

Brush With Death meets Full House. Full circle, yo.

I can totally see how you're already making a connection between this and this. 

Yes.

So when I last left you twenty-seven years ago I was basking in the glow of mountainous glory and classy dining: Kevin and I were having a California vacation without kids.

And after spending a couple days not getting enough of nature all around, we decided to head up to Muir Woods, which had been spoken so highly of. 

It was raining as we crossed a little known bridge in San Fransisco that morning, but certainly nothing that could keep us inside during our California adventure.  And as we got lost in Sausalito (who gets lost with a GPS, I ask you?) we noticed that the farther north we traveled and the higher into the mountains we climbed, wowee, the clouds around us became thicker.

Onward, just the same.

A bit into our journey we noticed a modest wood sign pointing off the winding mountain road a bit to a Buddhist retreat center.  We followed our curiosities and the road, which wound us down forever into a hidden valley, past some of the tallest trees I've ever seen in my life. 

Walking a narrow dirt path far into the valley we came upon a quiet, fairly dilapidated but remarkably peaceful place.  There were robed monks moving silently from place to place, graciously welcoming us in spite of the fact that we clearly did not fit the bill, generously inviting us to explore their gardens and the beach nearby. 

And after spending a fantastic morning there, taking pictures and nosing around, we continued on to whatever our next encounter should be. 

And it was an equally peaceful, damn, just so pleasant lunch in a tiny town of only a few businesses on one short stretch of road.  Then time for exploring the nearby bookstore (tiny place, creaky floors, rustic shelves, crazy charming) and trinket store. 

What a day.  What a day!  If it wasn't enough that we were simply moving along and stopping as we pleased, we were now running into the most charming places along the way.  It was the most peaceful, enjoyable time.  Just next to that other enjoyable day in the mountains, and enjoyable in the city, and...you get the point.

Onward.

So as things sometimes go, our day sort of turned a corner as we did.  We turned off the main road onto something that had actually made it onto a state map, though the map gave absolutely no indication of how winding, mountainous or straight freaking uphilly it was. 

And boy, rainy.  And winding, and long, too.

Winding, long, foggy and rainy and slow.

And, um, creepy?

As we climbed higher and higher into the heavily wooded mountains, slowly as ever on this tightrope of a road on the side of a mountain (or could have been middle of the mountain, hell I couldn't see anything but STRAIGHT DOWN) both Kevin and myself admitted to a sinking feeling.  We seriously could not see, and something seemed out of place, or just plain wrong here.  And we knew we needed to get off of this dark climb and back to something that was not the Blair Witch Project.

No. Shit.

Intensifying the feeling of sure doom, as we headed around one curve we noticed a white car parked up ahead.  Oh finally, people! was our at-first.  

And then, Oh crap, parked!

In essential darkness wooded middle of nowhere surely doing something illegal.  

Oh shit, illegal driver just looked straight at us.  

(Gulp.)

And then, as we got closer?  She sheilded her face with her hands!  BECAUSE NO DOUBT FOR SURE SHE AND HER PAL ONE SEAT OVER ARE BURYING A BODY UP HERE AND EHHHHHHHHHHHH WE! JUST! WITNESSED! IT!

(Gasp.  Gasp.  Gasp.)

We couldn't even speak the words to each other, but we both realized things in our minds or in reality, I am not sure, were getting out of control.  Kevin drove faster (12 mph) as each of us continually checked our car mirrors to be sure we weren't being chased up and down a dark mountain by murderers with bloody daggers.  Who know we saw.  (Nothing.)  

Hey look!  We've lost our GPS signal! 

And cell phones too!

We were racing - our hearts and our car.

I was panicking, going back to the map over and over to see when we'd finally hit another road - a way out of our outdoor entrapment, forget Muir Woods, all while venting my terror by yelling at my husband to GET OVER OH MY HELL WE ALMOST SLID OFF THE DAMN MOUNTAIN JUST THERE.  MOOOOOVE OVER, SLOW DOWN, SPEED UP WHITE CAR AAAAAAAHHHHHHH DAMN YOU VACATION!

Hours later we made it to our happy town that was just so happy...and happy! at lunchtime.  Only now it was creepy.  And our bookstore and our cafe were closed. 

So we stopped at the only place that was open, the teeny tiny grocery store, and bought caffinated beverages.  And I grabbed free matches, in case we needed to build a fire. 

 

And a bagel with an entire block of cream cheese in the middle.

Hours more later, we reached civilization and God shown sunlight down upon us for a moment.  And we did not die. 

We instead had In-N-Out Burgers, found a hotel and collapsed. 

(Now just take a second to digest and breathe.  Holy crap, no?)

Lucky for us, the morning that followed brought the exact opposite of sheer terror.  It brought my happy childhood back to me where I lived in my mind part time as DJ Tanner (and my sister Sant, sister Stephanie). 

 

Everywhere you look, indeed.

The day brought, oh sweet sigh relief, fantastic San Fransisco views,

sloping, sunshine-kissed streets far and wide,

and Mexican food on St. Patrick's Day.

We were not only fully adjusted to the two hour time difference that is the west coast to us, but our brains had been scrambled by the Blair Witch Sight-Seeing Tour that was the day previous and it was bean burritos for all. 

And home again, home again, jiggity jig.

We now begin our descent

We're home!

Annnnd I shot exactly 1,518 pictures on this our only child-free vacation in more than eight years.  Grab a drink, and maybe one of those squishy neck pillows.  I plan on posting every last one of those pictures.

Right as we began our California vacation, we set some ground rules for ourselves:  We made exactly no hotel reservations in the effort to sleep wherever we landed on any particular night, spend money on only what was really important to us (i.e. middle-of-the-road rental car, relatively inexpensive (but cleeean) hotels, saving plenty of cash for fancy schmancy kid-free dining and chooooocolate.)  Priorities, right?

Also, we decided that we should do what we cannot so easily do when we travel with the kids.  For me that meant driving twelve hours some days just to see everything we wanted to.  And browsing quiet shops that sell glass things.  For Kevin that meant climbing large rocks worrying only about his own demise.

(Black hair and all.)

Neither of us had ever been to the Pacific Ocean, though we have been through massvie mountains many times.  And the marrying of those two beauties?  Top priority.  On our very first day, in fact, we set the destination on our GPS for a tiny town hundreds of miles south that we figured we'd never reach, and we headed out on California 1, a road that winds through mountains, mountains, mountains right beside water, water, water. 

We stopped to walk through the grounds where Wayne Dyer filmed his recent movie,

and then to photograph every natural wonder we saw along our way.

And ohhhhh were there wonders.

I sort of knew as we pulled the car over on each available mountainside turnout that the pictures just wouldn't do it justice.  It was absolutely breath-taking - the ear-piercing silence and the smell of the ocean water and towering trees, all while standing on the edge of the earth in the middle of nowhere.  There was no one there, just us and God and water. 

And standing in the middle of it that whole day, over and over, made me feel grateful to be living on the planet- even if only for those very hours. 

We drove all day long, from morning to night, on the winding, ever-climbing mountain roads beside the ocean.  We lost cell phone reception, internet capabilities and even our GPS signal from time to time (though really, it wasn't like we could get lost.  There was one road in the middle of nowhere for miles and miles and all we had to do was not fall off the cliffs.)  It was the best day.

Watching the sun set in this way was exactly as I'd imagined it, only infinitely better.  It was nothing short of perfect.

Perfect, of course, until we realized that dark out there?  Was reeeally dark.  And my pictures turned to this.

And this.

Hmm.  Wouldn't it be great if someone thought to build a restaurant out here?  Or a gas station?  Or...anything?

We drove for a very long time until we finally stumbled upon another road with a little town, where we feasted on brie cheese, pine nuts, fruit and just-past-the-oven bread, followed by the freshest meats and organic herb-roasted vegetables.  That's what California is good for, that place.

We drove again for quite a while, finishing out our trip through Big Sur and well beyond, finally stumbling on another tiny town with a set of six cabins. 

And then we got up early the next morning, walked fifteen feet past our room and watched the sun rise right back up over that big blue basin.

This could not have gone any better if it had been planned, I tell you.

Later that day we undersood why California has such damn happy cows,

found the charm that is San Fransisco,

ran through the raindrops as we shopped souvenirs to our hearts content without so much as a complaint or a potty stop for anyone under six, dined on fresh crab - again with the candles, again with the quiet, only this time as we overlooked the San Fransisco Bay, listening to the sea lions bark.

We also wished to be Big,

and toured the city by twinkling lights.

Okay so we couldn't help one quick photo-op.  You know, for the kids.

Of course you do realize that no trip can be pulled off perfectly, or without heart palpitations for one reason or another...

3-2-1 Blastoff

Oh right, I'm going to California.  Not the moon.

And why I'm blogging right now rather than packing my last minute items is beyond me.  Possibly I believe that chasing an airplane down the tarmac can't be all that difficult?

I woke up this morning a little nervous, and a little sad.  Up until today I thought it a wonderful idea to leave my three young children for some relaxation on the west coast, and its probably best I made oodles of reservations a month ago or this trip?  May not be happening.  They're going to be in good hands (multiple hands of family members across the board, in fact) and with the little presents and home made cards I left for them, new play-doh, contraband double stuff oreo cookies and pizza cash, it is likely that they won't even realize I am missing. 

 

Except this one, I am pretty sure, is going to hit some sort of major milestone while I am away.  A tooth, sitting, crawlingrunningjumping, something.  She's been cooking it all up for a while.  Just yesterday, in fact, I caught her sitting up straight in her infant swing...as it rocked on high speed.  Thankfully my gasp scared the daylights out of her, setting her off balance enough to lay back with a thump instead of hitting the floor with a thud.  (My family will love the part in the Child Instructions Novel where I remind them to listen for the baby to wake in her swing...or a thud.  See insurance card and Permission to Initiate Medical Treatment letter, have a fantastic weekend.)  (Did I mention we left oreos?)

Thankfully my dear daughter has managed to sleep through the night the last two nights, now even in her own crib in her own pretty bedroom.  Ask me how that happened, I believe it all a blur.  She has also taken to food, finally, although not at all the pureed variety that babies usually enjoy for the first several months, but instead chunks of all sorts of foods.  (Read: Third child introduced to choking hazards infinitely earlier than previous two brothers.  Great success.)  I can't get over how quickly she is growing, now having flown right past her six month birthday in the blink of an eye.

And speaking of the blinking of that eye, it is really time to go. 

Rush. 

Hurry. 

Do not leave babysitters with sink full of dishes.

See you next week! 

(Here.  Have an oreo.)

I bet you guys cause gapers delays on expressways and watch Animal Planet shows about injured puppies too, eh?

I accidentally dye everything within a three foot radius of my head black and all you people want are pictures?  Ha!  (You're my kind of friends.) 

Sooooo, yes. 

 

I bet you didn't even notice the dried baby puke near the neck of my sweatshirt, so this hair thing may be working for me after all. 

I suppose now is the time to say there's no panic.  I would prefer something more natural for our upcoming vacation, but it is what it is.  I'm a stay at home mom with no boss, no clients, no judgy church ladies, and I am neither looking for a date nor do I seek the approval of random strangers in Target.  I am wondering if now is the time to call on my tatoo artist younger brother, though.  I could totally run with this theme. 

I've been scrubbing at my forehead and have it to reasonable beneath makeup.  Unfortunately the corners of my forehead are so dark that there'll be no ponytails until I can scrub that out a bit more.  I'm going to try the suggestions of baby shampoo and rubbing alcohol and see where it gets me.  (Will the rubbing alcohol turn some of those nearby hairs blonde, though?)  I'm really afraid to re-dye it today, or even over the next few days because black I can handle, but orange or green would likely cause me to take clippers to my head, and then I'd have to take MORE pictures for you people.

When KJ woke up this morning and saw me, he went straight to my sister asking, "What did you do to my mom?!"  And then he did the most natural thing for a six year old boy to do in this case:

 

He adjusted my Wii character to applicable hair color.

  

Pretty close, I'd say.   

Most importantly, Halp?

You'll remember that time I was all, Wahh Wahh Wahh I have gray hair, yes? 

The first part of my plan was to tear my facial hair out by the roots with some sort of cheap chemical at-home wax something or other. 

Part two included trimming my own hair so that I could wear it down, covering many of the grays until I could get a dye.

Part three ended up the part where I wore my hair down damn near every day because those grays were getting baaaad.

Part four, then, included a random purchase of a hair dye...that set me back only six dollars.  (So you're not entirely surprised.  I have a reputation for Cheap Polock Do-It-Yourself projects, yes?)

People, I knoooooow my common sense was begging me not to purchase six dollar hair dye, in a shade darker for the love of all things holy, but I did.  Because I tend to be sort of flippant about these things, until of course I carry them out.

So immediately I noticed, as my sister applied the smelly substance generously to The Land Of The Gray, that this hair dye was quite runny.  I kept wiping my forehead to make sure my skin wasn't being dyed dark brown.  Ten minutes later she was finished and I ran upstairs to peek in the bathroom mirror, already a bit nervous since the cracks in my thumb had turned black in only minutes after accidentally getting dye in them.

Half of my forehead was black.

Black.

An odd purpley shade of black.

Up ran my sister, answering my cries for help, and we scrubbed my forehead to no avail.

The only thing I could do was to wash it out, so I flipped my head over the tub and began rinsing with the shower attachment.  And this awful black-purple gunk flowed from my skull for what seemed like forever. 

Except upon looking around at the tub enclosure, with head upside down and ass in the air, black shit pouring off my head, (oh wait, I'll give you a second to get that mental picture) I realized that I tend to allow the chore of Bathtub Scrubbing to slide more often than I should, because the hair dye was sticking to the soap child scum, dying my bathtub ring black.

Oh freaking fabulous.

So now it's ten p.m..  And being so careful to keep my black dripping hair upside down over the bathtub instead of the floor, sink, towels and rug, I realize that I must SAVE THE BATH by rinsing down and pulling out the shower curtain, bath mat and tub toys.  Then keeping my head in the safety zone, still, I reach around the corner with my toes, fumbling for an old washcloth for dye-cleaning purposes.  (Oh why have I not cleaned this tub lately?)  At this point, of course, I've been standing with my head upside down for so long that my face has turned three shades of burgundy and I'm juuuuust about to pass out when I decide to just stand up and hop in the shower already. 

Frantically scrubbing the tub with my feet and washing my hair at the same time, I notice that the foam coming from my head is purple, and splashing the shower walls in all directions. 

Rinse hair, scrub bathtub with toes, scrub shower walls with hands.  World is turning purple.

NICE AND EASY MY ASSSSSSSSSSSSSS.

I considered, for a moment, trying my Aveeno clear skin face wash on my blackened forehead and hairline, though quickly reconsidered after imagining a bleached hairline meeting, most likely, black hair.

Did I mention I'm leaving for my California Vacation in THREE DAYS?

I skipped the face wash, re-lathered my hair and forehead for good measure, rinsed and shut off the water.  Avoided towel drying in white towels.

And indeed, I now have jet black outer-space inspired hair with a matching jet black splotchy forehead and an interestingly purple scalp, expletive expletive expletive.

And my question to you is, have I any recourse?  Because most certainly, my California Vacation will be better spent with black hair than green if I re-dye it.  I'm not falling over dead about the black, though I'd much prefer this to have happened NOT with late-winter pasty white skin tones.  Can I re-dye it tomorrow?  Will something lighter brownish cover the black?  Or will I end up with multi-shaded browngreenblackpurple spots?

And more importantly, my black forehead?  And thumb?

Thanks, in advance.

Your Pal,

Morticia Adams

Which is when I discovered that I should have thought of this sooner

When I called the end of tv time early this afternoon, they shut it off and asked what we should do next.  And while I would normally respond with something like, lunch followed by Play-doh, Legos or whatever is of typical interest to them, today I suggested that they make lunch for all of us, and wash the kitchen floor.  To be funny.

And then KJ excitedly called sandwich duty.

And Jack jumped at the chance to wash the kitchen floor.  ...And he was thrilled to pose threats of sweeping up Duplo blocks if they weren't picked up by the time he reached them.  I have no idea where he learned that from.

Not that they are unaccustomed to jobs around the house-  I began giving the kids responsibilities years ago, and I can't say they've ever given me too hard of a time about helping.  So now I get to add floor scrubber to the list.  (And subsequently, fridge scrubber, Duplo scrubber, living room carpet scrubber and dog scrubber.  We do what we can at Age Three, you know?)

So I suppose this is where I can segue into a topic I've brushed past a few times here, though I've not gone into much depth about it before. 

Through a combination of laziness and being unsure of exactly how to present it, I neglected to post entries containing all of the hemming and hawing that went into deciding whether we should take the plunge into homeschooling.  I spent the last couple years quietly kicking the idea around in my brain, and recent months really going back and forth weighing guilt and opportunity, sanity and bravery, what is best for the kids, best for me, best for my career, best for their future.

Homeschooling was a completely foreign concept to me for the longest time.  Where I grew up on the south side of Chicago, kids went to public school or Catholic school from eight a.m. until two thirty every day and no one thought any different about it.  Then I became an elementary teacher myself, endorsed in everything from the standard K-6 classroom to Early Childhood Development to Reading & Language Arts to Special Education K-12 to infinity and beyond.  I was either an overachiever in college, or Just That Awful at deciding exactly what I wanted to teach.  And even while teaching up until (yeesh) seven years ago, I'd not thought much about homeschooling.  I loved the classroom and all of the possibilities that existed for the kids I taught.  Sure, there were the typical issues that forever had me scratching my head, like how to meet the needs of all of these little individuals at the same time given the wide variety of learning needs and levels and interests, but that was something that I accepted for what it was because at some point it just had to be with a room of twenty-two children and one adult.  I did what I could.  And so it is with KJ's teachers at his school.

Everything changed, in my mind, when I had children of my own.  (Doesn't it always?)  As KJ got set to begin his first year of preschool I looked high and low for something that would be the right fit.  Our town is somewhere in the middle of Fantastic and Pretty Freaking Awful, and we settled on a decent option for him. 

A few months into that first year I knew for sure that while my son was having a good time making friends in school, he was far ahead of the learning curve and wasn't really getting anything academic out of the experience.  (Which with school, is always nice, yes?)  I carefully approached the idea in a conversation with his teacher, who plainly responded by asking what I would like her to do about that.  And it wasn't like I could add to her lesson plans or force accelerated content on the class for the sake of my kid, so I changed my view of preschool from Academia to Daily Playdate For Which We Pay Tuition.  And over the next two years I taught my child to read and write, add and subtract and everything in between, after school.  As I had done from the get-go, I never forced anything on him.  I moved at his pace and we explored his interests.  And as Jack grew in the picture, I did the same with him.  We spent days at the zoo and various museums, and simply taking long double stroller walks down the main street of our town discussing what each business was for and pointing out letters, numbers, vehicles and sounds as we encountered them.  I mothered in the way that was natural for me, and they learned as they explored their curiosities.

Then while house hunting a while back we literally used local school ratings as our guide.  We looked at public, private, Montessori, younameit.  Then things took a new direction and we ended up staying right in little old Town Familiar as our temporary solution, and I signed KJ up for kindergarten at our local public school.  He made more friends and I participated in his classroom every chance I got.  I was a little nervous as they began the year by learning colors, shapes and letters, where as KJ knew shapes and colors even before age two, and was a fluent reader by this point.  He was mostly enjoying himself though, and what could I do?  I wasn't about to approach his teacher for some sort of tweaking for my kid.  So instead I thanked my lucky stars that he only attended morning kindergarten, still giving me most of the day with him to play and naturally learn however and whatever he wanted.

By January of this year I was just plain disappointed with school.  In the work KJ brings home daily, at least four to six worksheets from his short three hour day, he rarely attempts writing neatly, never colors in the lines.  I am positive that he has realized his teacher isn't concerned with any sort of neatness, and therefore neither is he.  I can see that everything is rushed through because it doesn't require much thinking on his part.

I remember being bored in elementary school (ok we all do, yes?)  In as early as second grade I recall taking my sheets of math problems and systematically filling in the answers to make designs on the page.  In third grade my teacher used to send home extra, more difficult work for me, and I adored her for it (pastel blue sheets of Brain Buster math problems, and difficult phonics sheets with lots of fill-in-the-blanks on dotted lines.)  In fourth grade I once pretended to not understand long division, and I remember snickering within because it was sort of fun to be in the group that was pulled aside for extra help...while I made up confused faces with my actual confused friend Mary Beth.  During that same year I was scolded something terrible in front of the entire class for using red pen to correct my own work.  I had been playing teacher and it apparently didn't get me far with my own teacher (I never was too crazy about her after that.) 

I always got pretty average grades, oddly enough.  I knew it was what I could get by with, and I never felt any real reason to go the extra mile.  High school was much of the same, and when our junior class was all abuzz about whether or not they would be inducted to the Honors Society I was more irritated than anything with the entire idea, and opted to not apply at all.  By my last year of high school I knew I would be going to college for my degree in Elementary Education, and I jumped at the chance to ditch Physics on my elective sheet and go into Parenting and Child Development.  My school adviser was none too happy with that idea, pushing and pushing for damn Physics.  I didn't see the point, though, and had no inclination to stress myself out for no reason.  I took the child development class, learned Piaget and carried my blown out baby egg around for two weeks, and had a great time.  I decided to get straight A's my last semester of high school just to prove to myself I could do it.  And I did.  (Henceforth giving birth to collegiate obsessions with perfect grades, ta-daaa.)

Now, I cannot predict that my kids will have the same experience as I did with school.  Maybe things could get better there?  It isn't like there aren't sure positives for attending school - for both myself and for them.  But on the other hand, I can't help but wonder whether there is another way to go about this education thing.  If the goal of primary education is to learn certain facts and be able to make intelligent and necessary contributions to society once adulthood is reached, surely there could be more than one avenue to achieve that.  Just because School Eight to Two Thirty is the generally accepted way most certainly does not make it the only way or even the right way for every family.  I keep coming back to the idea that simply because we have a certain address in a certain town at a certain month of the year, is that really what should determine when and what each of my children is ready to learn?  What if they could instead learn at their own paces, using their interests as guides and the world as their classroom?  It's worked out thus far.

I have no doubt that KJ, Jack and Marin will receive an education and go on to college if we decided to keep them in traditional school for the coming years.  And I'm pretty sure that I would finally be awarded the fine break that every mother looks forward to once I ship them off each day - I could drink coffee at the bookstore! see a movie! earn my Masters! SLEEEEEEEEP!  But in spending all of these months and years intuitively aiming for the most honest, most appropriate path for my life I can't shake the nagging feeling that urges me to at least try this homeschool thing.  Last year when I learned I was pregnant with Marin, so much of my plan changed, and I opened myself up to so many new possibilities.  And this one seems fitting.

I have nothing against schools in general or anyone who happily sends his or her child to one, and I don't necessarily have the Way To Give It a Try pat on the back from everyone I've discussed this with.  But we are indeed going to try this homeschool thing next year, I can say with fair certainty, because there's an opportunity here for my children and myself, and I'd be so silly not to take it.

Hypotheticals

One of Jack's favorite lines of questioning (because really, there are so many lines of questions in the Land of Age Three, yes?) is to ask random, mostly nonsensical hypothetical questions.  He would like to know how I would respond to spaghetti on my head, or on the baby's head, or on the cat's head, or what Daddy might say if he had to hang upside down in the back yard on Sunday for three hours while KJ kicked soccer balls at his limbs. 

Just in case scenarios such as these should come to pass, I suppose. 

Recently I overheard a quick conversation between my sons which sort of gave me warm fuzzies and sure dread all at once.

Jack: What would you say if you were locked up in jail when you grew up, KJ, and I got you out?

KJ: Oh, I'd say, "You're a life saver Jack!"

So now we know how it would go down just in case I'm raising future criminals.