OMG! Never buy sisters matching shoes

[jennickels]

Just don't do it because the 10yo will say it's wrong for both of them to wear them to school the same day and demand the 8yo take hers off.  Then she'll throw a huge tantrum when the 8yo says she doesn't want to take them off.  Then the 10yo will scream in her face and say they made an agreement to not wear them the same day and SHE wants to

Comments

[thothmes]

Right up there with never talk a kid into buying something that they aren't too wild about.

My mom once took me to the shoe store for school shoes, and I'm old enough (52) that this was in the days when one was expected to have clunky leather shoes for school, and use the Keds for gym class. The penny loafers I wanted were out in my size (Yes, I'm old enough to remember when penny loafers were cool!) so my mother convinced me to get these other shoes, in a slightly yellowish leather. They also pulled on, but they had buckles, and just looked kind of dorky to me. Mom said I had to have shoes, they had to cost less than a certain amount, and these were the option.

The next day I spotted a brand new pair of the identical shoes on a really, really unpopular girl.

I bet my mom was very, very sorry that she talked me into them, because they were a source of argument for the next year and a half until I grew out of them.

They still look dorky in my 5th grade class photo, just as dorky on me as they do on the other girl. And every time my mom sees the photo, she says "I just don't know why you hated those so. I thought they looked nice!"

[Icon is of 8 year old (then 4) after her brother popped around the corner and surprised her with a camera]

[jennickels]

LOL.

Penny Loafers. Never had them...that I remember. Mary Janes were the thing, I suppose when I was a kid. I went to Catholic school so we had to wear black dress shoes. Penny loafers came back when I was in high school (in the 90s). A lot of my friends had them. I stuck with the clunkier Doc Martin styles (although I got the knock-offs from Payless). I look back at every class picture and just cringe. I wonder if my kids will look back and think they look as geeky as I think I did at their age.

I'm not used to all of this sisters fighting stuff. I only have 1 brother so I didn't have to worry about matching clothes and stuff like that. My girls drive me nuts with their bickering.

[my first icon is of my 10yo this summer...she keeps demanding I take it down because it's embarassing, lol. this one is of my almost 5yo being her silly self]

[thothmes]

I really only (currently) have two icons of my kids, the one of the youngest screaming, and this other of my eldest which is my default icon. The kids aren't too happy if they know they are wandering the web in recognizable form, and I don't push it.

My kids tease me because...well...their mother really does wear combat boots. I have this pair of black leather lace-up boots that I got maybe 6 years ago from L.L. Bean's that look for all the world like a pair of W.W.II combat boots. They're sooo comfy and practical, and well... me.

[jennickels]

My 9yo son would love a pair. He's way into the military. I found an army surplus store online and they had kid sized uniforms and he was telling me which colors he wanted. They even had jackets like they wear off-world on the show. I so have to get him the whole set up then make him some SGC/SG-1 patches for the arms. I'm definitely getting him the dogtags. They are authentic and you can have whatever you want printed on them for like $6.

I have a couple other icons of the kids. I had to get a paid account just so I could put more icons up because I had too many I like (make them all myself). I have 2 of the baby, 1 of all of them together and then the 2 of the girls above. Still need to make one of my older son but he's turned camera shy. Last time I tried to take a picture of him he threw his hands up and demanded to know why I HAD to take a picture of him. 9 year olds...

[thothmes]

My son and I had a running joke, because most of the boys at some point between 6 and 9 decided that displaying affection for Mom in public was too uncool. No more PDA's for Mom, even though they were all pretty devoted sons.

My son just never got that. Maybe because my husband still hugs his mom.

So my son would run off the soccer field or the lacrosse field when he was in high school, and give me a big hug if I could make it to his game (I couldn't always, because I'm only one person, and the others had games too).

I'd always whisper to him, "Boyo, you're making all the other moms jealous!"

He'd grin and just say "Yeah, I know!"

And you know what? He did, and some of the other boys began to notice, and started to hug their moms too!

[jennickels]

I don't think my son has hit that stage yet. He's 9 and I get the occasional hug in public. I'm not the huggy-kissy kind so it's not much of an issue. They are much more demanding of the hugs than I am. My 10, being in a ton of trouble the other day, came out of her room knowing I was already ticked and said, "don't be mad, I just want a hug." Can't deny that no matter how mad you are at them.

The new interesting development in our house is the notice of the opposite sex. Oy. It's drama central over here. Supposedly my son found a diary that belongs to the 10yo and it said she liked a boy named Kurt or Kirk or something. She went ballistic, threw a huge tantrum and got all upset when my husband teased her playfully about it. Geesh (hormones, anyone?).

Then my 4yo brought a paper with a heart drawn on it and "B+Z=love". Oh, boy. B is Brenna, the 8yo and there is a boy named, Zack, in her 2nd grade class. She found the paper on my desk and got upset, crumpled it up and refused to talk about it except to say she wrote it. :( Made me sad that it was so upsetting to her.

My son insists he doesn't like girls but half the little girls in our neighborhood have a crush on him. They follow him around like lost puppies.

But his friends...they all seem to like one of my girls. Today my son's best friend, Connor, was here and he kept teasing the 10yo. He would pick the baby up and put him on her while she tried to lie on the couch. She'd put him down and Connor would go right back over. Totally flirting. His other friend Andrew is just about the same way. They are both 9.

I always said that all of my oldest daughter's friends would want to come over just to see her brother and his friends would all want to come over to check out his sisters and their friends. It's all coming true...just a few years earlier than I thought.

[thothmes]

Our youngest is being treated for precocious puberty. She's 8 and she's started to develop. The first signs were hair in adult places and adult body odor. Fortunately there are drugs that can stop the progression, so now she has a little Norplant-like implant in her arm, which will last for a year, and then she'll get another for another year, and when that one is done, they will take it out and let nature take its course.

Because of her hyperactivity, and her sporty nature, almost all her friends are boys, and she prefers to play with the boys. They all kind of fight over who gets to play with her when they aren't fighting with her.

And she's a really good looking kid (I can say that without boasting, because her birth parents gave her that no me!)

And she plays hockey with the boys.

I'm warning my husband now that he'd better be prepared to beat boys off with a stick. He's 6'1" and broad shouldered, but he doesn't have a mean bone in his body, and it shows. If only he could do the Jack O'Neill badass colonel thing!

*wanders off to bed contemplating the efficacy of mirrored shades*

Night!

[jennickels]

We're going to be in trouble, too. Not sure how we managed to produce such good looking kids but we have 5 of them. My son has had girls following him around for years. Last summer, at our annual block party back in Chicago, a girl that was visiting her cousin across the street told my oldest that she thought my son was cute. This girl was 11. My daughter was like, "do you know how old he is?"

Her answer was, "I know, he's like 8! But he's soooooo cute."

My son, being the nice guy that he is, let it all slide with a slight blush. He was 8 1/2 at the time.

Oh, and the funniest event was a couple months ago, I think. He's in 3rd grade and there's this girl, Grace, that is in 4th grade. She sometimes plays with the girls. Well the kids had all been outside but my son came in to play xbox for a bit. She knocked on the door and my 4yo let her in. I hear her in the other room talking to my son, "Owen!" she demanded, "are you going to come outside."

I just snickered. She came in and was talking to my daughter a bit and my son finally turned off the game and came into the kitchen and was trying to sneak popcorn. I was watching them and she walked right up behind him, hands on her hips and was like, "Owen, are you coming out or what?" I could just picture her foot tapping on the floor in annoyance. He just sighed and was like, "yeah, I'm coming." After they left I just burst into a fit of giggles. They were so cute.