Guns N' Mothers

This Mother's Day found me content and very blessed. I couldn't help contrasting from a year before:

• Baby coming out of NICU
• Whooping cough in my kids schools
• Me hiding from the world and Whooping Cough (in Idaho)
• Plus a deep underlying stress about paying an intensive care bill without insurance. 

This year I have 4 healthy beautiful kids, no hospitals, not even hospital bills! The Mister of the House made me a---what 6? egg omelet with cheese and ham. There were flowers, cards, earrings, back rubs, and texts and messages from family and friends in general celebrating Mothers! There was also intermittent gun shots coming from the backyard throughout the day.

  Come children! Let's practice your songs you will sing during church today... (I'm now the Primary Music Lady...aahh!)
 {Background: Crank. Crank. POP!}



Oh Rainbow Girl. You are such a gooood back-rubber. Thank you!
{Backbround: Crank. Crank. POP!}


  You see, I'm not the only mom feeling relief this spring.  Remember this gal?

This breed of duck lives in our backyard because of their amazing ability to eat mosquito larvae and bugs.  With a temporary pond in the summer, they have proven vital to our little farm. They are also a duck with one of the longest gestation periods.  Try about 60 days instead of 30.

That means since February, through cold and snow, then warming spells, rain, St. Patty's Day, Spring Break, Church, School, Soccer, and Birthdays...this duck has been quietly sitting in the corner of the coop sitting on her nest.

Many a dinner conversation has wagered whether or not she started too early.  We have wondered if her once-a-day runs for water and food during February proved fatal when it was bitterly cold outside.  Months later, when those dinner conversations turned to The Mister of the House stating: I think tomorrow I might just grab an egg and crack it open and see if there's even a chick growing in there.

Well, the day after he said that, we had the first baby chick come out and play.  By the next morning, there were two!  They were fluffy, adorable, and would jump up on Mama's back.  She even ventured outside the coop, and took her ducklings through the chicken yard.

As a mother, I couldn't help have a sense of relief and accomplishment for our Mama Muscovy Duck!  We doubted you but you knew.  You did it!  You gave up a lot of sunshine, meals, swims, and preening, but it was worth it.

She proved to be the ultimate symbol of Mother's Day.

But her nest wasn't fully hatched.  So her outdoor escort was short-lived as she rushed back to sit on the eggs still left.  We went about our business, and then:

The Mister was doing chores and saw a Magpie pecking the baby duckling and flinging it in the air!

Peck! Peck! Fling!

So that was met with our pellet gun and a:
{Crank. Crank.  POP!}

And wouldn't you know those damn magpies won.

So I thought of my Mother's Day last year, the stress and worry, and this year feeling blessed and holy.  And my heart yearned for Mothers dealing with loss this year: be it an empty nest, a cancer scare (Wendy? Prayers for you!), or a teenage punk not giving away free kisses anymore.

Thankfully, for now, I have none of these worries.  But the Olsen's are thinking of all the mothers that do (Wendy? Prayers for you!) and are crankin' our pellet guns in your honor.

** The biggest irony of our Muscovy Duck Saga is that with my new music calling in church, I came across this song that came through the children's magazine back in 1979.  It's called "Don't Kill the Birds" and I laughed and thought about how these are different times.   Or are they?

So in honor of what makes me a mother, here's a quick update on the mutts:

Last year Chloe read "Jenny of the Tetons".  It's a historical fiction about an old trapper in the 1800's named Beaver Dick who married an Indian Woman and they had six kids.  Rexburg folks these ringing a bell: Beaver Dick Park, Jenny Lake, Leigh Lake?  Ends up there old homestead is just along the Snake River outside good ole' Rexburg.  Of course Grandpa knew how we could find it, and so we did!

This picture is a bit cliche right?  Chloe was fooling around with the camera and this is what I found when she was done.  She's hoping to "practice photography" this summer.

Leif is showing tell-tale signs of being a boy.  Ninjago Lego's, Spiderman, and Star Wars.  I found this little gem on my phone recently and thought it was adorable.

 Don't hit your brother!

Soccer!  He's doing so good and The Mister is having fun living vicariously through his son.

Isaac never stops talking.  Even while I was brushing his teeth, he was yak yak yakking away.  And yet, he will shrivel up and die before getting up and talking in front of an audience.

And Gideon can swallow a......fly? cat? dog? horse?  That's quite the gape going on old lady.

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My August Experiment: The 4S "Diet"

July 31: Tomorrow is the month of August. The month of family birthdays, end of summers, the cringing at school supplies stocked in every store. It's the last moment to squeeze in our last late-night affairs with outdoor movies and popsicles, all the while dreading what the months of farm chores and play have done to our math skills AND our morning skills.



The Mister and I are on different body clocks, by which I mean that he is a wake-up-and-go guy, and I steal a few hours from the night to increase productivity of my day. That is my preference, and I fight it; but this summer I gave in to it. It's summer! I had a newborn, we had movies in the park, sunsets at 9:30 and middle-of-the-night feedings. But what with my expanding gut not getting smaller even though it's no longer housing offspring, and the impending doom of school schedules and homework, I felt an experiment rising to put me back on track. This August I am implementing a simple plan. Four elements that start with the letter S, to keep it simple and do-able. Think about joining me if you are in the same boat, as any extra support is welcome.

SALAD
SCRIPTURES
SEVEN
SLEEP



Here's the rules:

SALAD-A-DAY*
In an effort to avoid the annoyance of calorie counting, and to help curb my sweet-tooth, we're going back to a raw green salad a day. It might be a breakfast spinach smoothie, or steamed cabbage for dinner, or a big fat salad for lunch. But EVERY day we're getting some greens. For extra inspiration in the salad department, click here.

SCRIPTURES*
"Bridle your passions, and I'll feel you with love". I completely recognize along with celebrations and parties, food helps avenue my stresses about parenting, motherhood, beauty, etc. For whatever HOLE we have that food often fills, I will be trying to fill instead with some holy word instead.

SEVEN*
Try to eat dinner every night while still in the seven o'clocks. 7:30 pm would be ideal. In tandem with this is the hope that I don't eat for at least 3 hours before going to bed. Because I'm nursing, and I don't want my plan to fail, I'm allowing myself ONE PIECE OF FRUIT between dinner and bed-time. But that last meal is taking place before that clock hits 8!

SLEEP*
The irony of this rule is that I am now writing this at 10:42 p.m. But it's still July technically, so here goes. GET TO BED EVERY NIGHT BY 10:30. My reasoning behind this is that most avenues to good health should require a sleep plan, and that lots of good intentions to make better health changes are derailed when we lack sleep or are extra tired. Late nights also pose temptations to snarf some sweets.

Also note: one last movie in the park in August so I'm allowing myself a couple of nights to break the rules...but definitely they will need to feel like exceptions and not routines.

That's it! So that is my plan for August. I'm hoping that once I've laid this groundwork, I can add to it with a more consistent exercise routine.

Won't you join me?

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At the Moment

As a girl who has loved having a blog because it helps sorting out my head, the recent silence of my tapping fingers was surprising. I thought I would need to sort out my lessons and thoughts, but instead it has been a quiet period of reflection. For now I have a little perspective, and the thick summer air still holds the posts about all of the women who helped me overprepare my home, kitchen, closets, and suitcases before baby Giddy arrived two days past his due-date.

How just hours before his arrival we had a family home evening talking about when we lived with God before we came to earth, and how our new little brother was soon to make an astronaut-inspiring journey through space, time, and my birth canal. How we cradled a doll and reminded everyone how to hold a baby. And how I loved seeing the light go on in my five-year old's head as he asked about God, and how could he be his father, and his daddy's father? And how when I went to bed that night I thought "Sheesh, even my dang garage is cleaned out I've been nesting for so stinking long...and of course this kid is coming now because we had a spiritual family tune-up".

For now, those stories await a future harvest like my late plantings of garden corn. At the moment, it is enough that my baby is home, is safe, is healthy....and beautiful!

Photo Credit Filter Photography.

I think this biological clock thing is real. With my oldest on the precipice of puberty, my last "baby" grown up and not giving me kisses, I am finally starting to understand what all those grannies have been telling me for years as I frustratingly wrangle little mutts: "Enjoy it! They will be gone before you know it!"

With a big fat baby living amongst the tiny NICU crowd, I gasped in panic at the thought that my investment of love, calories, nausea, and fatigue would be gone all the while ripping out my heart with its departure. But instead, my baby lives! I love to hold him, to squeeze him, and proclaim: You're a little person!



I love him so much that I'm even over the fact that this is the most unflattering picture of my gut. Where in the heck is my waist? But guess what, I honestly don't care right now. My garden will get it off eventually, and that joy on my face is real cause my baby lived.

Good Night Planet.

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Two Little Boys

With the anxiety of A) getting this pregnancy over; and B) seeing this gestating kid and whether or not your DNA lapped The Mister's in the gene pool, means that you can get sidetracked from the actual moment of things. The state of your family unit.

Right now, I have two little boys that are just over 2 years apart (a pregnancy milestone for me, but pretty standard for most Mormon Mommies). They share bunk beds, they play, wrestle, and are Jedis and Spidermen together. Older brother sounds out words and little brother copies and exclaims that he can read too!



Here's evidence of some father-son weakness. Dad played soccer as a kid. He takes older brother to buy soccer clothes because he is finally old enough to play on a city team. Dad decides to purchase two of everything (including shoes!) so these two little boys can practice together in the backyard. Little brother can't even sign up for another two years, but daddio is making sure Team Olsen is covered for now.

When yet another little brother shows up ANY DAY NOW! *hint* there will still be matching uniforms to giggle into, kicks back and forth, and the sharing of deep slumbering breaths from the other bunk.

But how about when older brother is 16 and middle brother is a crummy 14? Will 14 be buddies with new baby brother (who would be 11)? And will older brother feel the transition and get his feelings hurt (because he is my cautious and sensitive kid)? Will the bunks end up being for the two youngest boys down the road to solidify the new union? Or will baby brother always share a room with oldest sweetest sister?

When I hold this new baby can I finally admit that The Buddha Baby is growing up? Will he despise the loss of his cherished title, or will the satisfaction of being on Team Olsen suffice him instead (since baby just sits there and sleeps)?



This is the evolution of childhood, of families, and of motherhood (as you manage new sibling alliances and/or try to restore lost ones). This is the evolution that is felt in the bones, not viewed through a microscope.

Does this mean I think this kid will come into our home and be a hell-raiser and disrupt the family unity we have? Well, of course not!

But change is in the air.

The trees are starting to turn colors.

And my autumn is so beautiful right now.

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Anderson Talent: Part II

What with my beached whale status, and the fact that for $7.99 a month I can watch Netflix episodes without even needing a disc...means that I have been in an Apache Avenue Time Warp the past couple of weeks. The Cosby Show People! It was the sitcom of my childhood, and according to some, the sitcom of the century.

But mostly, it's a sitcom about my dad. I have been watching episodes while folding laundry, while doing dishes, and I laugh at Dr. Huxtable and think of my dad. Although I would say my dad is more of a cowboy version of ole Bill, there's the undeniable similarities: the dry sense of humor, the deflection of tension through silliness, the athletic prowess relived through the offspring. There's the interest in your kids lives, the interest in your kids friends, the waiting for the kids friends to get the dad's weird sense of humor.

The loving to hang out on a Friday night in High School with your best friend while your dad lounges out hours of riddles which he will only answer with a yes or no question. What dad is ever cool enough to get their high school offspring (and buddy) to want to hang out with him on a weekend night?

Ummmm, that would be my dad.



This is a picture in the 80's at my Grandparent's 50th Wedding Anniversary. Apparently I'm not the only one who compared my dad to Bill Cosby, because it was at this somewhat formal family event my dad was invited to be the Master of Ceremonies. He was funny. All the grown-ups were comparing him to everyone's favorite funnyman, Bill Cosby, and I heard it often growing up.

So now watching The Cosby Show, I'm not obsessing over what amazing outfit Denise is going to be wearing next. I'm a mother now, and I think of what kind of parent I want to be. The parent I intend to be. And yes, the parent I wish I could be but decide not to be sometimes.

That folks, is talent!

Like American Television searching for "Who's Got Talent", I get caught up and even rightly impressed with busy mothers composing hymns, and people with vocal pipes to light up a stadium, but I'm trying to not forget the network of quiet talents that, like their showy counterparts, require work, discipline, patience, and perseverance. The talents of:
* listening
* forgiving
* laughing
* playing ball
* and filling your punk kid's gas tank every other month just to be nice

These are the talents of my favorite funnyman, my own little Hoser....my dad! (P.S. The gal on the right ain't so bad either)



Here's some awesome memories of my dad that have spawned from the depths of my brain while watching The Cosby Show:

- He taught all of us kids our address and phone number with a little chant we would sing. He also taught us a chant to know what to get when it was our turn to set the table: "Bread-n-butter, Salt-n-pepper, Knives-and-Forks-and Spoons!"

- When I was in Jr. High, the little Siepert kid up the street ended up at our house one day looking for his older brother. My dad joked around with him, probably teased him. The next day, this kid knocked on the door and asked me if my dad could play. No kidding! So cute.

- When my nephew was a baby, he was put down for a nap. My dad stood above the crib and grabbed a children's book and started singing the pages (cool cowboy voice mind you). Pretty soon the kid settled down and all was quiet, but Hoser was gone a long time. When he finally came out, he was asked what took so long? Your grandkid stopped crying a long time ago? My dad simply replied that he had to finish the story (I'm pretty sure he kept singing it too).

- When new friends would come over to my house, they all seemed to be intimidated by my dad. He was a coach, and his humor was dry. Inevitably (especially this happened with friends that were boys) he would sullenly walk up behind them, grab each ear in his hands, and then tilt their head from side to side while making airplane sounds. After 3 rotations, he would start shaking their head (by their ears) and make machine gun sounds. Duh. He was a fighter plane people!

- Speaking of chants. As a coach as a church-owned school, he helped during the summer with boys basketball camps. It was b-ball morning, noon, and night. After meal-time all the boys would fill the gym and get ready for a group stretch. Then Hoser would state they were to stretch while chanting an old Indian saying..."Repeat After Me!"
{Stretch to the right} Oh-wah!
OH-WAH
{Stretch to the left} Tuh-nah!
TUH-NAH
{Reach for the sky} Siam!
SIAM

Repeat 5 times..getting faster each time. Little boys at a church college chanting this over and over? Now that's funny!

- And lastly: A woman turns off the lights to her house. A couple hours later she turns on the news. What she sees on the news makes her kill herself.

What happened and why did she kill herself?

(p.s. in riddles, every detail is significant. Only yes or no questions allowed!)

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Lather Up

I am shocked! shocked I tell you...that Christmas is 9 days away. I'm still in the middle of my learning curve of being the mom with the magic at Christmas-time, and every year it creeps up on me earlier and earlier. But fortunately for my sake, I married into the family whose mother made Christmas a science. She teaches classes for crying out loud! And so we're still sponging off of her traditions for now, plus adding a few of our own. Here's how we're getting lathered up for the holidays around here.

Dear Mom, I would be sponging off of you if we lived in the same town. I miss you. Love, me.


Aunties and Grandma took the mutts to the Nutcracker Ballet! Complete with a preliminary tea party to kick off the event. Check out the little waiter dude on the left. Is he for real? He's like a mini-adult, which is why they hired him to be a waiter. And plus, baby in a bonnet! I'm salivating just looking at her...



Santa visited the ward sugar-fest. I missed Vanilla Wafer, but was able to catch my youngest butting in line to get to Santa. No Santa fear in that kid. And in the other kid (on the right)? No Santa doubt. I wonder if I'm doing her any favors at this point.

She's convinced she has a specific elf assigned to her and keeps writing Santa to ask if she can know who her elf is. Adorable right?



Here's our new favorite holiday tradition, the Live Nativity. This was started the year we moved out to the semi-country by our neighbor. He takes care of his horses and chickens and other animals from a golf cart because he's paralyzed and in a wheelchair! He does more manual labor than I do and I have working, running, legs. Amazing!

There's something essential about being in a barn, smelling the hay, hearing the animals pawing the ground, and thinking about a Heavenly King coming into the world all humble and sweet. I heart it.



Here's Grandma Cozy again at her finest. This tradition stems all the way to The Mister's childhood. Gingerbread houses made from graham crackers. She boils down raw sugar till it's hot and sticky and we glue the sides together, then use frosting and candy to do the rest. They are sturdy little suckers and my kids had a blast!



Here's a fun Christmas tradition I learned at my Mother-in-Law's Christmas Class years ago. The Christmas Quilt! For years I have been meaning to start this tradition, thinking "After Christmas I'll buy some fabric on sale, and make a simple block quilt, and have that be the Christmas Quilt".

This year I said: "Get real Mrs. Olsen. You'll never get around to making that quilt before THIS Christmas". So instead I pulled out an old tartan fleece picnic blanket, christened it, and let it do it's magic.

Magic what? Every night the quilt rotates to a different bed where we all gather. Whoever got the quilt picks a Christmas story to read from our basket of Christmas related stories.

So much fun!

Hope your holidays are going great!

Love,
Mrs. Olsen

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Weedkiller: Part One

By the time Vanilla Wafer was born, my womb had been dry for four years previous. We were so excited to have that perfect mix of one boy and one girl. We reached deep into our Scandanavian heritage and gave him a Viking name. It was only a matter of time until he would pillage the neighborhood and wreak havoc on the nay-sayers.

Would. You. Just. Look. At. That. Face! That was way back in aught-five.

Now look at him:





And as Joseph! Be still my heart! (pictured here with his cute cousin Eliza). It was one short high school career ago that he was a little cuddly mutt!

So here's the thing: we wanted him to be a tough little viking, to grow up fast and strong like a weed, but that kid is downright tender-hearted. Now don't get me wrong, the testerone thing is evident when he just starts wrestling neighbor boys for no reason but to say hi. Other than that he is cautious, careful, and quiet. Plus he's four, and he's semi-eloquent. That basically means that when I was recently in a major hurry and got the kids a cheeseburger at MickeyD's, that after the fact we couldn't get in the car without him begging for a "Cheese Ham-bow-guhr" for a month straight. Not cheeseburger, a Cheese Ham-bow-guhr. Got that?

In a hurry to take Rainbow Girl to piano, and from the back seat comes the excited "Mooom, can I get a cheese ham-bow-guhr?"

On the way to Grandma's across town: "Mooom, can I get a cheese ham-bow-guhr?".

So I thought: protein, calories, growing boy, semi-eloquent english quotes, happy kids, no dishes...totally worth a buck!

But then one night I was carpooling Rainbow Girl's best friend. Her mom is my dear friend, works hard to pass good nutrition into her family, cans food 4 months out of the year, and recently did the "Daniel Diet" with her family (aka all natural foods, nothing processed).

So I'm throwing the burgers to the kids, yell back and ask if BestFriend wants something. She politely says no. We drop off the friend, get home, and then Rainbow Girl cautiously approaches me to ask me a question: "Mom" she starts timidly, "BestFriend told me that there is poo in the hamburger meat. That's why she doesn't eat those hamburgers. Is this true mom?".

Okay, wait just a second. What do you think? What would you say?




So after thinking for about 6.7 seconds, I dropped my head down so I could look her square in the eyes and said: "Yep. It's true."

"Mooom!" she starts, "Why didn't you tell me?!"



...and then an old argument I had heard once just popped out of my mouth. "Well, they make sure they cook it at a really high temperature so any bacteria that might be in there would get killed!"

Rainbow Girl says nothing. She is just looking at me, looking off into the void, wondering. I hurry off to my bedroom to fold some laundry and catch myself in the mirror. "What the hell did I just say to my kid?" I wondered to myself.

The thing is, The Mister of the House and I, we owned a movie store for 6 years. So the delicious film "Fast Food Nation" had been presented to me a few years earlier. Based on the book by Eric Schlosser, this film details the cultural, marketing, ranching, and farming fallout of the crazy consumption of the American Fast Food Meal. One scene in particular shows the Kill Floor where they process the beef. It illustrates how quickly they must get the meat through, that an occasional intestinal puncture would spill unspent shittake mushrooms onto the processing block. Minus the mushrooms part. It shows how they would be in too much of a hurry to shut down, throw out the contaminated carcass, and that instead they would just keep going and, um, incorporate all of the ingredients.

All this e.coli stuff that happens? That's from poo in the meat, right?

In the film, poo and e.coli is presented to a top dog of the industry, and in the film he counters back that the strict cooking regulations will kill any bacteria that may be present. THAT LINE, from THAT guy defending poo in the burger, is what came out of my mouth to my kid! Messed up.

So I came back to my kid and said sorry. I said it was gross and we should just stop getting those cheese ham-bow-guhrs and we went to bed. The weird thing is that THAT resolve to sign off the Fast Food burger was mine several years ago, after seeing the film "Fast Food Nation". I lasted a really really long time. The Mister tapped into his daring and risky Viking heritage and lasted a month before he ate a burger again.

And now this? Proud mom wanting a strong boy, and why had I forgotten my previous resolve? Damn them I think it's because of the Southwest Chicken Salad.

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Man of Action

As a distracted mother, I often catch my kids playing the Wait-It-Out-Game. It goes something like this:

Mrs. Olsen: Please go pick up the toys downstairs so we can go do something fun.

Offspring: Okay! [disappears]

Mrs. Olsen inside her head: {Oh right, I need to finish cleaning my bathroom}.

...ten minutes later

Mrs. Olsen: Are you kids ready to go do something fun? Did you pick up the toys?

Offspring: [pulling out more toys, games, blankets, etc]. But MooOoom, So-and-So isn't doing their part?

Mrs. Olsen: Just a second!

{remembers a pot about to boil over on the stove. While in the kitchen, realizes that visiting teachers are coming over in 30 minutes and the counters have crap all over them. Starts picking up the backpacks and shoes from the main room to take to kids room when she realizes she has sour laundry. Drops shoes in the hall to switch out the laundry and hears the doorbell ring. Remembers she told a friend she would babysit and invites them in. Blah Blah Blah Blah Blah spinning her wheels and running in circles}.

You get the idea.

So there are times, I am loathe to admit, that my kids can simply wait it out (particularly on crazy days like this) and can easily get out of doing what they are asked to do.

But sometimes you have days to make up for it. Sometimes you are actually on the ball. And sometimes you have a sweet, cautious, middle child that, when appropriately separated from the pack, is doing his part to

L I S T E N & O B E Y .

There's a few jobs this kid is trained to do, and do well. Every week he makes the rounds returning shoes to appropriate bedrooms, replenishing toilet paper drawers in the bathrooms, unloading the dishwasher, and even sorting laundry.

Check out this kid's tongue, a true indicator of his concentration level.

Since Mrs. Olsen is becoming proficient at forgetting to switch out laundry, Vanilla Wafer recently added another chore to his list of regulars: Switching the laundry from the washer into the dryer.



So yesterday, when I yelled across the house: "Hey Wafer! Can you please come and empty the dishwasher?" I watched him immediately run to the laundry room. I knew he would wonder what was going on since there was NO clothes in the washer. Not wanting to be fruitless, he simply emptied the clean clothes from the dryer onto the floor.

Know what? It made my heart melt. It melted because of his quick response, his lack of excuses, my not having to ask twice, and his moving forward even though he didn't quite get it. Then my melted heart was smothered in chocolate when he still proceeded to unload the dishwasher after I reminded him the DISHwasher was in the kitchen, not the laundry room. Thanks kid!

Thanks for making tremendous efforts on your amazing drawings:


Thanks for being the reliable pillow for your sister:


Thanks for being the sweetest boy to your aging mother.



“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace and power in it.” - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

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Letter: Dear Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm

Dear Starkadders of Cold Comfort Farm,

There's a piece of your English Countryside Farm that has always appealed to me. The fresh country air, the quaint shops a hop and skip down the country lane, and the loyal nature of your family clan. That seed of filial loyalty was the primary exploitation of your Head Matriarch, Ada Doom, who ruled her family's life and the farm from the shrouded confines of her upstairs bedroom. Any thoughts of modernization? Travel? Careers off the farm? were met with the proclamation that "There's always been Starkadders on Cold Comfort Farm" and if that didn't discourage properly, then the trump card was played: "I saw something nasty in the woodshed!"

You see I'm calling you out, because my daughter recently discovered her trump card, and she's been playing it again and again. The nasty thing she saw in the woodshed aroused my sympathies. I even wrote a nasty letter to whoever scheduled "Frosty the Snowman" and "Criminal Minds" back to back. Aside from the indecencies, the healing, comforting, and striving for cleaner entertainment, my daughter derived a sense of power from this trauma, and it's getting a little out of hand.

Exhibit One:

Rainbow Girl is hanging out with her Idaho Cousins and 11-year-old cousin wants to show her something on the internet. Ever diligent, Rainbow Girl asks permission first, and worries that it could be bad to watch. Mrs. Olsen (the mom) says Go for it! and then Rainbow Girl watches the following clip. Afterwards, she becomes the sullen female of the cousin group, and proclaims that she is sensitive. She also gets lots of extra attention and won't go to bed at night. Prepare to be damaged for life:

This coming from a kid whose favorite toddler movie was "The Nightmare Before Christmas". The thing is, she warbles her voice and calls out "MoOoom?" while she gives me a play by play for every innocent, if slightly irreverent, clip, joke, or sibling rivalry.

MoOOoom? (warbly voice of a deserted victim discovered 3 hours post-trauma)I think that the show was inappropriate.

Charlie the Unicorn? I ask.

Uh-huh.

Exhibit 2:
Desperate to refresh our favorite movie feeding off our proud Idahoan heritage, we decide to watch Napoleon Dynamite over Christmas. This was Rainbow Girl's idea, and after our day was done, we nestle in for this flick. As it begins, she reverts into watchdog and says: "Wait mom, Vanilla Wafer (age 4) probably shouldn't be watching this. I think there's some bad words." After which she kills the humor of this flick by turning to her brother after Napoleon delivers his deadpan "Idiot!" name-calling, and says "Hey. Hey. Don't say that word brother".

She gave her brother some excellent training that day.

Time for bed!
MooOom....so-and-so threw a snowball at me yesterday

Please gather the eggs!
MooOom...my cousin told me a scary joke and I can't go outside alone

You're greasy. Take a shower!MoOom...I heard a barking sound under my bed

Signed,
Watchdog parent not willing to be taken hostage by Charlie the Unicorn

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Letter: Dear Mr. Network Sequencing Agent

To Whom It May Concern:

I'm not sure who to write this letter to. Let me first start by saying this: You're an idiot. Perhaps it's sexist for me to assume you are a man, because any sense of nurturing or sensitivity that occurs naturally in the female gender appears to have been absolved. I'm not sure if your job is big or small, but I would surmise it's some exalted secretarial position that always leaves you wanting for more. So to whoever you are, "Mr. Network Sequencing Agent", please consider this:

It's Christmas. Frosty the Snowman is a TV classic that even I enjoyed as a kid, so I'm sure it was a no-brainer to schedule this wintry wonder the week before Christmas. Everyone's happy right? Thirty-something parents reminisce, and adorable offspring watch in wonder of the magic of that old silk hat they found. The thing is, the old silk hat doesn't do laundry, so your older demographic has a higher chance of tuning out. Please consider that 8 year olds don't tune out. They are ready for whatever you dish out next, which in this case was a bloody re-enactment of a crime scene perpetuated on a wife by her husband, or in this case, (because your audience was still single-digit-aged kids high on Christmas Spirit), someone's dad.

As a parent, I try not to buy into the hypersensitive paranoia that scratches across the border of common sense. I'm reasonable okay? But this isn't a case of over-reactive parents. Some news is meant for adults, adults who can balance their morbid curiosity of filial love gone terribly horribly wrong, with years and years of relationships, neighboring, traveling, schooling, and working to realize this: most people are good. Horrible things happen, yes, but most people are good.

I have had to repeat to my daughter how old I am, how many places I've lived, traveled, and worked, and how I have never even known someone who had done something like hacking another living soul to pieces.

But to an 8 year old kid, with a handful of relationships, carefully nurtured by parents and family, well it practically blew her brain to think that something like that could ever happen. After the flashing of images, she was nauseous, and for the past 2 nights her giggling comes to a halt when she squeaks out: Mom, those bad pictures are still in my brain. How do I get them out? Plus she's worried that she's being watched, and is afraid to go to bed even after I gave her a kick-A bedroom makeover.

I wish you knew my kid so you could understand that she is not a stupid drama queen, and that she is a good, sweet, and loving soul. I wish you understood that you are effectively a flock of seagulls with gullets full of loose, fibrous, wet waste that you just dumped on her head, and probably a family heirloom sweater she was wearing. You get the picture.

So please eat shit. I hate you right now. I don't even know what network is responsible (longer story) but I would urge you to bore your cartoon market with some local news, or maybe an all boys choir, to ensure that you aren't infringing on our happy, sacred, reveling Christmas Spirit that we occasionally entertain through the media.

Passionately,

Mrs. Olsen

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