The first few weeks of summer are always so hard. First of all, my kids think that everyday should be a huge event like going to the movies, sleep overs with friends, ordering pizza, have a huge water fight with a zillion people, eating out at restaurants and then going for ice cream at Cold Stone. They also get feisty and mean to each other and forget how to get along 24/7. I swear they are nicer to their friends than each other. After about two weeks I had had ENOUGH. I had to put a stop to that. It was madness I tell you. I was always saying "NO, sorry, you can't go there or spend that". Then we played the "Well, you let (fill in child's name) go (fill in the blank) yesterday!" game.

Finally, I sat all of my kids down and explained the National economy and then the Woods Household economy... both fluctuate daily. Then I told my kids that we were going to have a "Family Shut In." We were all going to spend the entire day home -no friends or cell phones! They were to be home and be nice to each other, or else!  It was quiet at first and everyone was basically sitting on the couch out but after a while I heard massive fits of laughter and my kids were being nice to each other again. It was a very peacful day. That was my favorite day of summer and we are going to "shut ourselves in" often. Especially because it is free!

Yesterday my three kids found a newborn baby bird, just hatched, right on our front porch. Since it was lying helpless on the ground, they decided they needed to recue it and promtly made it a home complete with interior design that looked like a Hilton Hotel for Feathered Friends. Next they took turns, loving, praying over and making comfortable the helpless bird that probably had a broken neck. They begged us to keep the bird as a pet and named him "Trooper Woods." Since Trooper was still half dead, or um, sleeping when they went to bed, they gave Todd and I the task of babysitting the bird until they could continue their mothering the next morning. As we headed off to bed we heard the bird sqweeking hysterically for food. It's little beak was quivering up and down and he was so helpless. That is when Todd said to me: "Honey, we need to kill this bird so the kids don't see it die and it won't suffer anymore." I promtly said:"No, death is a life lesson for kids and they need to see if they can help this bird or not." What was I thinking?! I went to the cupboard and mashed up a cracker to give to Trooper while Todd laughed hysterically that I was feeding the bird the eqivilant of prime rib to a newborn. He dared me the chew up a worm and feed it to him but we couldn't find any worms. I am always up for a dare. Since we were failing miserably we tried to give it some water and decided that it was probably best to take him outside. We figured that his mother was probably out looking for food like in the book "Are You My Mother?" and would be home soon. We also went to bed and hoped that God might perform some great miracle of salvation, or at least the bird didn't die on our watch. Not to be! We were woken up by three bawling children, a dead bird and a funeral invitation. Trooper had passed on from this wonderful life and we had to sit through a funeral (about 1/2 hour) and burial for the bird. Trooper, we want to thank you for coming into our lives. You were truly  um, sweet, and little and quite loud when unhappy. We hope you will Rest In Peace. Sincerely, The Woods Family

I have been friends with three girls since we were in 7th grade. We get together every year, tell our most embarassing stories, laugh and act like we are still in high school. We have 17 kids between the four of us. This year we decided to go to Hawaii because we are all turning 40. An extra bonus is that one of the four of us lives there! We planned the trip perfectly and we all headed from our various homes and met in Hawaii. ALOHA! What a great time we had until it came time for my friends to swim, surf or scuba dive. They didn't want to do any of those things. They wanted to lay on the beach and get TAN! Can you imagine that? Who wants to get tan in Hawaii? Okay, so I know I am in the minority (with white, pastey, freckled skin) and it probably didn't help that I am much more confident showing off my body to the fish than the humans. But it is not my fault. I am a size 10 and the last I checked (which was in 1986) a size Ten was PERFECT! If you were a 10 you had the perfect body and got a perfect score and probably a blue ribbon if you were that size. Now, everyone thinks smaller numbers are better. Whatever happened to "He with the most wins?" Okay, so me and my skinny mini friends who I will call Size 2(the fattest of the three), Size 0 and Size 0 0, all sat on the beach. That was oh so fun to lay next to them. Because I am the fatty, while they dined on grilled lettuce (I am not even joking, their whole plate was one head of lettuce that was grilled, no dressing or vegetables!) I snarfed down grilled chicken and broccoli. They shared a string cheese while I ate my whole string cheese AND an apple! My friends did have some serious issues though, don't be feeling sorry for me! My friends got too cold in the water and could only stay there for a few minutes before they would turn blue! That is what happens, my friends, when you don't carry your proper food storage on your body. You cannot survive! Me, I surfed three hours, went scuba diving, held an octopus, watched dolphins and swam for hours on end!  Because I am a size 10 (FYI: I CAN sqeeze into a size 8 if I stay in the house, no ones is looking and don't walk too far or breathe!) I got to have TWO college guys teach me to surf and I wasn't even cold! It pays to have body fat I am telling you!  I got up my first time and rode the wave in. You can just call me surfer chick now. And, yes, I promptly went on a diet and called a personal trainer when I got home. Grilled lettuce anyone?

 

Okay, So I have been exercising quite a lot lately. I was pretty much thinking that I could handle a class taught at our local gym called "Boot Camp". This class is supposed to challenge you and give you a wide variety of exercises to keep you in high physical fitness. What I soon discovered, in the first 2 minutes of class, was that 1. Satan lives on the earth and teaches Boot Camp and 2. He wants to make your exercise experience Hell on Earth! Okay so the teacher is not Satan (in drag?) but she was SO Hard and kind of mean! She had us running , lungeing, lifting, squatting, jumping rope and (almost crying) in the first two minutes of class. Her exact words were "This class is NOT your strength training or aerobics class. This class is designed to push you! Hurt you! Work you past your limits. You will go until you cannot breathe, think you can't take anymore, think you are going to collapse and THEN make you continue for another few minutes." It was 1 hour of torture! I was trying to sort of hide in the back of the class but she kept saying "Come on MICHELLE! Don't be lazy here!" or my favorite "Michelle, if you can't keep up, I am going to make you and the whole class do another round of running!" I was so embarrassed that I pushed myself just to deaths door. I thought it was so weird that she was calling me out as I was the new student in class. It so happens that as I was leaving I heard her say to another lady. "Way to go Michelle, you really worked hard today." So, I did all of that keeping up for nothing! I am going to try it again next week but if you don't here from me, you may want to check to see if I am in hell.

I have a confession to make. I throw away some of my children’s artwork. Please do not tell my mother. She still to this day has a basement full of my snoopy collection, dolls, artwork, clothes and every paper I ever wrote on. I will own up that I am not as good as a collector as my mother, but I don’t want to be either. I try to save a few special projects from each child every year. I also will keep almost everything that comes into the home on the fridge for at least a couple of months. Here is my method. After a couple of months, I put it in the garbage. If my child pulls it out and says “MOM, HOW COULD YOU THROW AWAY MY FAVORITE…?” it stays. Otherwise, it goes to decorate the recycle bin. Sorry mom. Hey, could I get my snoopy collection back?

Today my son came home from kindergarten and said that someone got in trouble from the teacher for whining today at school. I said, “Was it you?” He said “Um, no, well, I can’t say, but it was the other guys fault anyway.” Mystery solved.

My kindergartener drew a picture today of what he would do if he became President of the United States. His picture was of a very happy child and under it he wrote. “We would all go to McDonalds.” Someone write him in on the ballot.

My daughter Kalia’s is seven and she loves to give me driving directions. She will tell me if I am going too slow or if the other lane looks better than the one we are in. She warns me if I ran a red light or didn’t quite stop at the stop sign long enough. Who needs cops when you have a tattle teller in your own car?