Who wants to be a millionaire?

I decided to blog today just because I am feeling a little burnt out. Micah called 911 for the 6th time this morning and Isaiah just walked by with a huge Tootsie Roll pop that he found somewhere in the house, leaving a dripping red trail of stickiness behind him. I feel like my sanity is about to reach the tipping point, so it's time for a little stress relief.

My last blog was about our last trip to McDonalds. As I was writing it, I remembered the other half of that adventurous fast food trip. Elena discovered the McDonalds Monopoly game. She is convinced that we are going to win a million dollars.

It all began when she saw the Monopoly tabs on the side of the french fry box. She pulled the tabs and started reading them. She asked what they were for. I told her that they were for a game and showed her the boards.

All of the sudden, she is peeling every game tab off of every box that we have, and then she began searching the floor for more. She was so excited, "Mom! We have Park Place. All we need is Boardwalk and we'll have a million dollars!" If only it was that easy...

Now everyone we meet and everywhere we go, Elena is sharing that we are going to win a million dollars. I don't have the heart to tell her that McDonalds has most likely only produced 1 Boardwalk tab and it is probably on a french fry box in the windiest part of the country, where the experts know that it will blow away before it will ever make it back to their corporate office. Actually, telling her would probably make my life easier.

As soon as we returned home from McDonalds, she had to call Mark and tell him the wonderful news. Then she pleaded for him to go to McDonalds for lunch so that he might find the "golden Broadway ticket." Mark must have been skeptical, because then she went into detail about the game works and how she is sure that the Broadway ticket is only a Big Mac away from fruition.

I remember when I believed that I was going to magically become a millionaire without lifting anything but a sticker on the side of my food box. Now I realize how the world works, but I can't break it to her. She hasn't believed in Santa since she was 6. I have to give her something! Plus, I have guilt from being the worst tooth fairy ever, but that is an older blog.

I'm not sure I'm done with this blog, but I have to save Isaiah from certain destruction. He's standing on my dining room table next to my crystal cake pan...

Survivor

I write this post after my son's 5th call to 911. When he would call in the beginning, they would always call back to make sure that we were okay. Now they don't even care anymore. *sigh*

This post is actually about Isaiah - the ultimate survivor. If there were a show that was really about survival (and not about group dynamics like the TV show Survivor), I would totally enter Isaiah. Well, I'd enter him if there were no minimum age... I really think that if something happened to us and Isaiah was the only one left, that he could live on his own for a month or two.

You might ask why I believe that my 16 month old is the ultimate survivor. Well, let me explain...

Since Isaiah was first able to crawl, he has had an attraction to the trash can. When we first put him in his high chair, he was immediately drawn to the assortment of food that lay in the trash can. (He can see down into it from his chair.) I remember having to move the trash out of his reach at the earliest age. Then, when he was first able to crawl, one of the first places that I had to banish him from was the trash. He would sneak over to the kitchen, crawl up on the chair and see what kind of wonderful foods he could find. Our lid for the trash broke a couple of years ago, so we can't keep it covered. Isaiah likes it that way.

Isaiah never cries for food. He scavenges. The other day I heard knocking on the patio door in the basement. I walked downstairs to see what was going on, because my four kids and the neighbor were just watching a movie. Apparently, Isaiah was the one who had been knocking on the door (which is right next to the TV area). The kids, not really thinking about the fact that he's 1 year old or that that was raining, let him out into the backyard. I'm sure that if the movie wasn't so good that they would have thought twice about letting him out into a monsoon-esque rain storm. By the time I got downstairs and realized what was going on, Isaiah was knocking on the door from the outside. I opened the door, and he came toddling in the house with a half-eaten rotten apple in hand. He was as happy as can be. He proceed to sit down with the kids and eat his find.

Realizing that he was hungry (and eating a really gross looking apple), I went outside to grab him a fresh apple off of our apple tree. I took the rotten apple from his little clutches and replaced it with a perfect, fresh picked apple. He immediately threw it at me and started crying and pointing at the rotten apple. It took me a while to realized that he prefers rotten apples because they are easier to bite. Once I had this revelation, I would cut a slice out of a fresh apple. Then, he would resign to eating it.

I wish I would say that this was a solitary incident, but it is not. Mark planted a garden this year full of carrots, strawberries, and tomatoes. Isaiah doesn't like the tomatoes, but he loves everything else. He digs in the strawberries until he finds some good little morsel that he can get his hands on. If he can't find anything, then it's off to the apple tree to find another rotten apple!

Isaiah tries to be a well-rounded baby, so he doesn't limit himself to food. Last week, I was standing in the kitchen making dinner, and Isaiah walked right past me to the patio door, which was open. He walked with purpose, so out of curiosity, I watched to see where he was going.

Isaiah climbed down the deck stairs, and walked to the play house, where the kids had left a couple of plastic cups. He grabbed a cup and then turned around, walked to the stairs and climbed back up to the kitchen. Holding his cup, he walked past me again, down the hallway and into the bathroom, where he pushed the step stool up to the counter. He climbed the stool and onto the counter, where he turned on the faucet, filled his cup with water and started drinking. That's a baby that knows what he wants!

Now I just have to be more aware of Isaiah when we're out and about - I can imagine how excited he'll be about eating out of someone else's trash. At home I bury anything that has touched raw meat in the bottom of the trash - or if it is empty, I throw any dangerous items in the trash outside. Now I just have to come to terms with the fact that my kids don't need me anymore. My 16 month old doesn't even need me! Actually, now that I'm writing this, it's actually kind of liberating. Hmmm... I wonder if I can potty train a 16 month old. We already know that he can climb onto the toilet...

911 - Not An Emergency

This morning Micah woke up earlier than Mark or I was willing to wake up. In a sleep-induced fog, Mark turned on his cell phone, found a game for Micah to play, and then handed him the phone. Micah was quiet and happy, but Mark jolted awake when he heard a distant voice say, "Is your mommy there?"

Apparently, Micah had gotten bored with Brick Breaker and had moved on to bigger and better things-such as calling 911. The 911 operator was the friendly voice that Mark heard on the other side of the phone. I wish I could say that this was a solitary call to 911. It is actually our 4th call to 911 this year.

Is it possible to be "The Boy That Cried Wolf" when it comes to calling 911? Will the police station recognize our phone number and stop calling back to see if there is really a problem? Micah has the greatest knack for calling 911. He has called 3 out of the past 4 times. I don't even think he knows what 911 is. He just knows that if he pushes a certain button (we're not sure if there is a special emergency button on Mark's cell phone), that a friendly voice will talk back. Don't even bother suggesting that we lock the phone. There is some special way to call 911 with the lock on. The funniest thing is, Mark and I don't know how to call 911 with the lock on-only Micah has solved this mystery.

Isaiah has joined his brother in the excitement of calling 911. Our 3rd call of the year was my then 15 month old dialing 911 from the fax line. There is no phone attached to this fax line, so when the police called back, I couldn't answer the phone and tell them not to bother. I knew I was about to get a visit.

The first thing I did was look around the house. It was a Monday morning, and the house was a disaster from the weekend and I hadn't yet had a chance to clean it. (Not that I was really going to clean it right away, but I figured that I at least had a reason for the mess.) In anticipation of my visit, I started running through the house, cleaning as fast as I could (well, I was mostly cleaning, but I just had to update my Facebook page about what was going on). The house was looking better, but was definitely not perfect when the officer showed up at my door.

When the police officer showed up, I explained to him that my 1 year old dialed 911 from the fax line. I thought he might be impressed at how smart he was, but instead he looked at me like I might be a little crazy. I guess with a lame reason like that he figured I might be held silently at gun point and had to resort to making up some last minute story to get rid of him. He just said, "I need to check out the house, ma'am."

Now, when a police officer is checking out your house, you notice all of the things that are laying around that just didn't bother you before he showed up. He methodically checked every room until he saw the boys in the basement. The baby was happily playing with a toy and Micah looked up and gave him a wide grin. At that point, he stopped checking the house. The boys were obviously under no stress. I breathed a sigh of relief that he never made it to the laundry room. I was a little behind on laundry.

The officer politely left and I thanked him. I breathed a big sigh of relief - hoping that I didn't have to deal with 911 again. Then, there was this morning. My kids keep me wondering what excitement each day will bring.