“Mom, I Can’t Feel My Toes.”

On this, the third snow day of the school year, we finally got actual snow. Admittedly, I never expected it to snow. 1-2 inches in north Louisiana? Puh-leeze, weatherdude! What are you smoking???? We may get ice and sludge and generally terrible driving conditions, but real-deal snow tends to pass us by. We Shreveporters live in what I call “the weather bubble.” Weather aims right for us, turning at the last minute to soar above us or below us, rarely coasting directly through our lovely city. We are grateful that most of the bad stuff passes us by. Unfortunately, so does much of the fun stuff.

Until today.

That heavenly snowfall began around 9:00 a.m. and continued its White Christmas cascade all morning long. But as I look out the window while writing this, the snow seems to have finally stopped falling. 12:21 pm. The driveway is mushy and the street is beginning to regain its grey asphalt hue, no longer smooth and white…which tells me it is melting… just like weatherdude said it would.
(Which also tells me the roads may not be as treacherous as they were two hours ago. I may try again to haul my butt into the office. Y’all don’t lock me out just yet!)

I love the color of our world when it is illuminated by sunshine. But if it can’t be gloriously bathed in bright yellow, then I prefer it to be white. This white…

My photography skills leave a lot to be desired, but my desire overwhelms my pathetic lack of skill to bring you this…

And this…

And this…

My poor, poor confused spring bulbs. 😦

And finally, yes, the kiddos took to the great outdoors, shunning their screen devices for a sacred morning of pelting each other with snowballs…

Aaron with a snowball earbud.

Look! They’re touching! And smiling!!

…and competing in a snowman building contest.   Here are Misty with her creepy penny eyes…

… and Frosty McTaxFraud, each sporting their very own coffee mug. Does anyone else agree with me that Frosty has a quirky Al Capone look going on? Nice bat.

So, while the kids toast their tootsies in front of the fireplace, I’ll leave you with a few more snaps of my favorite place on earth…

the garden in winter…

St. Francis near Mason’s grave

The Mabelline!

Mabel’s favorite part of any snow day is coming in and getting dried off.

I’m gonna need more towels.

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The Twelve Days of Christmas – Mainiero Style!

For some, Christmas is over.  For our family and slightly over a billion other Catholics, Christmas has four more days to go.   I have taken some of our more memorable moments of the last few days and compiled them into the Mainiero Twelve Days of Christmas.  Disclaimer: The conversations shared here may or may not be verbatim, but convey no less than I heard, at any rate.  They are also not dated with any precision, since we are technically only on Day 8.

Somebody crank the harmonica, would ya?

On the First Day of Christmas my true love said to me…

“I’ve made an executive decision.”

“Seriously?  You do recall that the last time you made an executive decision and announced it in such grandiose fashion we ended up with Mabel, riiiiiiight??”

“Nevermind.”

On the Second Day of Christmas, my dear son, with Christmas money burning a hole in his pocket, said to me…

“Hey, Mom…can you take me to WalMart so I can get this Lego set I want?”

“Dude… on the day after Christmas, you want to go to WalMart?  December 26^th…the pinnacle of wretched retail returns…really?? Puh-leeze!!” I huffed…

And then promptly took my children to WalMart.

On the Third Day of Christmas, my mother said to me…

“Let’s clean out Victoria’s room while I’m at your house today.”

“Sure.  Then we’ll clean out my washing machine and dryer filters.”

Ironically, neither of us was kidding.  Equally amazing, we found a movie gift card lodged in the dryer filter, and it still had a balance.

On the Fourth Day of Christmas, my children said to me…

“Hey Mom, since we found that movie gift card…” (don’t you love inappropriate use of the word “WE?”) “…can we go see a movie today?”

“What do you want to see?”

“Chipmunks!!”

“Hell no!”

On the Fifth Day of Christmas, my children said to me…

“Hey, when are you going to the grocery store again?”

“Never.”

“Whaaaaaa???!!!!”

“You want food?  Take my car.  And some books to sit on. One of you steer and one of you work the pedals.  Kroger is that direction.”

“Mommmm!!!”

On the Sixth  Day of Christmas, the rabbits said to me…

“Hey, lady!! It’s freakin’ cold out here in the garage since you left the bloomin’ door open all night.  Bring us in, would ya?”

“It’s 6 a.m.  Curl your furry little cottontails up into a ball and snuggle down in all that expensive bedding we buy you to pee on.”

“If you don’t come down and let us in, we’re going to thump our back feet so loud you’ll think the house is falling down around you.”

And so they did.  And so we did.  The rabbits were in the kitchen by 6:15.

On the Seventh Day of Christmas, I said to those damn rabbits…

“It’s 60 degrees again.  Out you go.”

“Witch!!”

“Hasenpfeffer!!!”

(Google it.)

On the Eighth Day of Christmas, my daughter said to me,

“Mimi wants to know if I can spend the night with her so that the fireworks don’t keep me awake tonight. Can I? Can I?  Pleeeeeeeeeeease???”

“Did Mimi ask you, or did you ask Mimi?”

“Does it matter?”

On the Ninth Day of Christmas, I heard my daughter say…

Quite excitedly as she was assisting her dad in cleaning out the fireplace…

“Hey, Daddy, can this be my job EVERY year??”

Rock on, right?  I may loan her out.

On the Tenth Day of Christmas, I said to AMC…

“For the love of everything holy, WHYYYYYYYYYYYY are gift cards to your theaters sold in Shreveport, Louisiana when there is not an AMC theater in a 200-mile radius of us???!!!!!”

“Oops.”

“’Oops??’  I’ve been gifted with $50 of worthless movie cards.  That is, unless my husband and I pass up fourteen other theaters and spend three times that in gas to go see a movie in Dallas.”

“We can refund you for the gift card values.  You’ll have a check in 5-8 weeks.”

Sweet.

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas, I confessed to the Hubster…

“Um, honey…I think that movie card I picked up for your office party was an AMC card too.  Tell whoever got it they can call for a refund.”

I got The Look.

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas my daughter said to me…

“Will you help me give Marsha a bath and clip her nails?  She really needs it, and I just know she’ll be good in the sink. I’ll hold her still.”

And wouldn’t ya know?  That’s just exactly how I wanted to spend the last of the holiday – giving the rabbit a Spa Day. 😉

I hope your family had a magical Christmas celebration, and that the magic continues throughout the year. 

The Month of May, According to My Daughter

This morning as I rinsed my coffee cup I spied Victoria’s calendar on the kitchen counter.  An odd place for it, to be sure, so I looked closely to see if it was a current calendar.  Indeed it is – turned appropriately to the month of May.

I found her “appointments” quite amusing and decided to share them with you so that she can hate me for it later.  (Such is life, eh?)

May 6: Field Day.  Yep, it was.  Despite how she previously told me she hated Field Day, I was there to witness her having a darn good time.

May 7: Drew’s Birthday.  Drew is her favorite male classmate.  She has another word for him – something that eludes to him being a boy who is a friend, but I just can’t go there with my 9-year old baby quite yet.  I get queasy just thinking about it.  They held hands at Field Day.  I had to sit down.

May 8: MaMa and Sissy – the kids and I travelled to Tyler with my parents to surprise my grandmother (MaMa) for Mothers’ Day.  So proud that she documented the trip.

May 10: Today.  I have no idea why the entire day is blocked out.  Perhaps I should have asked her about that before the day got started…it looks ominous.  Anyhoo, I figure she probably wrote something in error and this was the only way to never have to think about it again.  Bright pink certainly draws your attention away from it, no??

May 23: Victoria Day is celebrated in Canada.  Vic insists that our family should certainly celebrate it as well.  “Yay Yay” is written on the date.  All Hail, Queen Victoria.

May 30: Memorial Day, already assumed to be celebrated at Aunt Pam’s house (and more importantly, Aunt Pam’s pool) just like the past five Memorial Days.  I have told Victoria that we must receive an invitation first. Vic apparently has every confidence that the invite will be forthcoming.

I am surprised that the Last Day of School has not earned its rightful spot on her calendar.  Perhaps she wanted to be certain of the date first, so she doesn’t end up with two pinked-out squares.  FYI: the last day is the 31^st, a lone Tuesday after a three-day weekend that counts as a legitimate attendance day – a matter that leaves me more confused than why Vic’s calendar was on the kitchen counter in the first place.

2010 : A Year in Quotes

While I would love to do a photo montage of 2010, let’s face it:  I am just not that organized.  So, I thought the best way to sum up our year would be a recap of some of the things I have overheard, and some conversations of which I have been a part.  Here is our year in review with a list of Things Heard Around the Mainiero Home:

“Are you through with your mashed potatoes?”

“Mabel licked ‘em.”

“So, that’s a ‘yes?’”

—-

“Mommy, what do we have to buy at Ham Hock Fabrics?”

“It’s ‘Hancock Fabrics,’ sweetie.”

“Whatever.”

—-

“I need a new [iPod] screen protector.  This one has Cheeto on it.”

—-

“Mabel has something!!!!!”

{This quote is always followed by a stampede of people chasing Mabel to retrieve whatever she has absconded with.}

—-

(Aaron)

“I had to sleep on the cold, hard floor last night.”

“You did not.”

“I did, too!  I was laying on the floor.  In the kitchen.  With the freezer door open.”

—-

(Vic)

“Can you help me get Marsha (the bunny rabbit) back in her cage…again?”

—-

“Mommy, you are an organic freak!!”

—-

“If you grow a garden of all that stuff, are we gonna have to eat it?”

—-

Vic: “There’s a man standing over there with a cane.”

Aaron: “I see him.”

Vic: “That cane shoots lasers out the bottom.”

Aaron: “His cane does NOT shoot lasers out the bottom of it.”

Vic: “You don’t know that.”

—-

“Why do people have to pop firecrackers?  Don’t they know I don’t like them?”

—-

Aaron: “Why does Mason have to go to the doctor again?”

Me: “You want the long story or the short story?”

Aaron: “The short story.”

Me: “He has tumors in his butt.”

Aaron: “I am soooooo sorry I asked!”

—-

Happy New Year from the Mainiero Zoo!

Labels Astray

While on our family walk this evening – a ritual we have re-instated due to warmer weather and the need to remind Mabel why we invested in her training – we came across another dog on the loose. Mason was quite interested, while Mabel surprisingly ignored the scruff-meister. I thought the dog looked a little intimidating, but it stayed somewhat within the boundaries of its own property, so I knew it already had more cultivation than Miss Mabelline.

As we got further away from the dog, Victoria announced that she sure was glad that wasn’t a straight dog.

Excuse me??? (She has a tendency to make me do frequent double-takes.)

“I’m glad that’s not a straight dog!”

My first question (aside from what in the world have I been letting you watch on tv?) was “How in the name of Peppermint Patty do you identify a straight dog?”

“You know…one that doesn’t live anywhere and just roams all around everywhere and probably has rabies. At least that’s not a straight dog!”

“STRAAAAAAAAYYYYYY, baby. STRAY dog,” I said, fighting back the urge to burst into laughter.

“Yeah, that’s what I said!”

Victoria: Like it or lump it!

You always know where you stand with Victoria. She is honest to a fault, and readily admits her shortcomings. And she is not one to butter you up just to get something she wants. Relationships with Victoria have to be honest or she is not interested in them. She has begun to have a rough time with her teacher lately. We have heard Vic complain that her teacher does not smile, and always seems unhappy. Trying to give the teacher the benefit of the doubt, my mother suggested that Victoria make the teacher smile each day by greeting her with, “Good morning, Mrs. __! I hope you have a great day today!”

Victoria eyed my mother for a short time, and then dryly said, “I just don’t think I can do that.”

Victoria: Temporary Tattoo

At dinner the other night, I glimpsed ink-penned words on Victoria’s forearm. As I imagined her writing her spelling words on her arm, or something equally deviant, I sharply asked what in the world she had written. Her explanation made perfect sense given the situation of the past couple of weeks…Victoria had been reporting to me that she received conduct marks for other people talking in class. Not for one second believing she was innocent, I would tell her each time that other people talking when they are not supposed to does not giver her the right to talk. “But Mommy, I’m telling them not to talk to me, and then I get in trouble!!” To which I would reply, “DO NOT TALK if you are not supposed to!!” So as she lifted her arm to show me this temporary tattoo, I saw for myself her attempt to heed the rules: she had written, “TALK TO THE ARM!”

Kindergarten Graduation Picture by Victoria

So this is the picture for Victoria’s Kindergarten Graduation. I have shared this story with so many people… now I share the picture and the story together. When Victoria went to school the morning of these pictures, her hair was “styled” in a partial pony-tail, possibly with a ribbon or bow, since I was told ahead of time that no “caps” would be worn in these cap-and-gown pictures.

I had no idea any other adornments were on her person to be memorialized in photos. BUT APPARENTLY, we should have named her Victoria Stealth, because the “jewelry” seen in this picture was sneaked onto campus in her backpack. On the evening that these proofs came home, I anxiously examined them and was at first struck by how professional she seemed to look. My thoughts lingered momentarily on her hairstyle, but since it looked nice, I didn’t dwell. But, she’s wearing a necklace, isn’t she? What is that neckace? Is it a choker? It looks so familiar…I’ve seen it before. It’s not mine. Was it a gift from someone? No. Where do I know that necklace from?!! Why, wait a minute…it’s not a necklace…it’s all coming to me now…it’s…it’s…IT’S A TOY DOG COLLAR FROM BUILD-A-BEAR WORKSHOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! VICTOOOOOORIAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was instantly furious, but by morning, I found the whole thing hysterically amusing. The bracelet on her arm is her ponytail holder. And, as several friends pointed out, she does accessorize quite well. 😉

Webkinz

Last night as we were preparing for bedtime, Victoria informed me that ALL of her classmates have “webkins” and she must have one too! We discussed what Webkins are (since I did not know) and I told her that she has a birthday coming up and that might be a perfect time to seek such a toy. Besides, who are ALL these people with webkins? “Everybody in my class!”

“Like who? Give me names.” She proceeded to name three kids. Out of the 21 who ALL supposedly have webkins, we narrowed it down to three who actually have them.

Fast forward twelve hours. We are preparing to leave for school; Dom has already arrived at work and calls to tell me that there is an accident on my route and to plan a little extra time. I weigh the options of going the usual way, or finding an alternate route to avoid the hassle. I tell the kids that we are probably going to go a different way to school, and that it might take us a little longer than usual. (They are BIG backseat drivers, so I try to give them the gameplan early – saves them from freaking out when I take an unexpected turn.)

As we drive, however, I determine that our original route is unblocked, and we proceed as usual. Still stuck on “it might take longer to get to school,” Victoria complains that all her friends will already be at school by the time she arrives. Oh, please. I ask, “Who will already be there?” She replies, “ALL my friends! Everybody!”

With as much sarcasm as I have ever heard him use, Aaron asks, “Who?! Those three kids who have webkins??!!!”

Good to Go to Mexico (Thanks for the title, Toby!)

In the car this morning, driving to school through thick fog, Aaron asked why it was so foggy. I launched into an explanation of hot-air/cold-air and what happens when they meet. Aaron contemplated my answers, and pondered aloud a new question: “I wonder if it’s foggy in Mexico.” (I wouldn’t know.) And then, as if a new realization had suddenly struck him, “I’ve never BEEN to Mexico!”

From the sidekick next to him (Victoria): “I have.”

Aaron quickly corrected her. “No you haven’t!”

“Yuh-huuuuhh. I have TOO been to Mexico!”

Now, Aaron cannot stand to hear Victoria fib, and is quick to call her to task when he senses her losing loyalty for the truth. So, through clenched teeth Aaron reprimands, “Victoria, YOU HAVE NOT BEEN TO MEXICO!!!”

To which she stubbornly replied, “Well, I’ve been to TACO BELL!”