More from the Flannerys

If you leave this board

(Yes, those are nails.)

laying on the floor like this

then your husband might step on the board and one of the nails might go into his foot far enough that he has to reach down and pull the board (and the nail) off (out) of his foot (And he might have to go to his ER and get a doctor there to clean it out so that it doesn't get infected and give him a Tetanus shot so he doesn't get lock jaw.) and you might feel really bad and really guilty.

If, however, your husband leaves this board

laying on the floor like this and he steps on it. You'll still feel really bad.

But you'll avoid the guilt.

Let me entertain you

Isaac loves cars. I don't let him play in my car but that requires some work on my part. The car must always be locked. (I'm not a locker by nature, my parents not only don't lock, they leave the keys in the cars. And I was raised with that so the locking thing took some getting used to.) But it doesn't end at locking. Ike, he's 2 remember, can unlock my car. He's perfectly comfortable unlocking either with the key fob thing or the key itself. And he makes sure to lock the door behind him. (I may not be a locker by nature but he is.) He likes to turn on the lights and the blinkers and generally do things that make turning on the car very interesting for me the next time I get in it. He also likes to put the key in the ignition and turn on the radio. And because that's not interesting enough anymore, he starts the car.

Let me tell you how fun it is to stand outside a car that you can't get into because it's locked with the key inside and try to talk your two-year-old into turning off the car and letting you in. Really, really not fun. (Here's a hint, if you show any sign of how mad you are he won't unlock the door.) So we keep the keys on top of the fridge where he can't get them. Yet.

It's not just my car that he likes. He's an equal opportunity car lover. He climbs into my mother's car when we go there, He'll climb right into any car he can find. He doesn't talk a whole lot but he can and will identify the "owner" of any car that he recognizes. He knows which car is Laura's and which is Grandma's. He yells out "Ne har" (Sydney car) every time our neighbor drives by. (As an aside, I'll tell you that he calls our van "mine har" that's mine car. In his mind it's not my car, it's his.)

Ike also climbs the fence of our fully fenced yard. He's been brought back by the neighbors on more than one occasion.

Given the above, why was I at all surprised when the Maggie and Aidan came running in the other day crying because Isaac had locked himself into a car that was left parked (but apparently not locked) on the street? (They were crying because they were afraid he was going to suffocate in the car. There wasn't much danger of that.) Whose car it was, I have no idea, but I feel safe saying that Ike has now taken things to a whole other level.

And I thought raising Aidan was going to be bad.

Love to all, wish me luck- Allison

It just keeps getting better

I love my minivan. I know that’s not the cool thing to say, a minivan is not a “cool” car. Most people put off and dread the day they have to become minivan owners. Me? I was stoked for it! I love my power locks and power windows. I really love my dual rear power sliding doors. And don’t even get me started on the DVD player, I adore it. And for previously mentioned reasons I love that you can not take the car out of park and into gear without a foot firmly depressing the break.

But there’s one thing I do not love.

I do not love that the car must be turned on, with a foot firmly depressing the break in order to get the car out of park.

Let me just give you a hypothetical situation.

If, say, your car was pulled all the way up under your carport and, say, your daughter said she wanted to wash the windows (of the car) then you might say yes, even though you don’t think it’s a very good idea, because you can’t think of a reason to say no fast enough. And if, say, you told her that while she was at it she should clean all the crap out of the car and then you handed her the keys to the car so that she could get in it (because in this hypothetical you had to always keep the car locked and you had to keep the keys on top of the fridge lest your hypothetical two-year-old son try to steal your car) then about a half an hour later you might see your daughter leave the house with a CD in her hand and you might follow her out to the car to see her putting said CD into the car CD player (which means the keys are in the ignition so that the CD player has power) and she has not only a bottle of Windex but a bottle of Clorox Clean-up spray. And if you yelled at her and sent her to her room and grabbed the CD and the Windex and the Clorox Clean-up spray then you might lock the car and not think about it until the next day.

And if you went out to your car the next day at 8:45 after having wrestled four children into church clothes alone because your husband is at work and you’re staring down the barrel of three hours at church with four children, alone then you might find that your car won’t start because your daughter left something on and you’ll just load the baby into the stroller and tell the other kids to get their bikes and you’ll walk to church in your heels and you’ll still manage to only be five minutes late and make it in time for the sacrament (because you are that good).

But the next day when your husband is home with the other car, if the van has to actually be on in order to get it out of park, then you won’t be able to put it in neutral so that you can get it out of the one car carport and into a place where you can reach the battery, so you’ll have to very carefully pull the car into a spot that’s only about 6 inches wider than itself to get it next to the van and you’ll still have to hook two sets of jumper cables together (safety first) because the battery is, of course, on the side of the engine closest to the house and farthest from the open side of the carport.

If all of that happened, then you might wish that the car didn't actually have to be on to get it out of park.

I’m just saying…

Oh and if the above ever happened to you I would recommend that you find out what was left on and turn it off as soon as you realize that the battery’s dead because then there’s a chance that the battery won’t be so dead that jumping it doesn’t work (despite the very safe arrangement of your jumper cables) and it has to be replaced and you’ll take the old battery out and you’ll take it to Checker and you’ll tell the guy there that you need another battery just like it and he’ll ask you for the make and model of your car despite the fact that you know what kind of battery you need because THERE’S ONE SITTING ON THE COUNTER RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU and then he’ll ask you for your name and phone number (?????) and then your credit card will be denied and you’ll use the other one and $85.00 later you’ll carry the sixty pound battery back out to your car yourself while the dude from Checker tells you to have a nice day. Maybe it won’t make any difference since the battery was already so dead that the power locks didn’t work, but it could.

Boys!

Isaac was playing out in the yard the other morning. I went out to check on him and I found him crouched down, looking intently at something on the driveway.

"Ike," I call, "whatcha got there?"

He looks over in my direction. "Sbleh bleh," he says standing. (Most of what Isaac says sounds like Sbleh bleh, it's a pretty versitle term, kind of like smurf or dude.)

"Sbleh bleh?" I ask as I walk over to him.

"Sbleh bleh," he confirms crouching back down and pointing.

I peer intently, my gaze following his finger.

"It's a spider," I say.

Now I am female but I find that I don't get all that worked up over spiders. In fact I had a very live and let live attitude even toward spiders in my house until I found a black widow. A big black widow. On my mop handle. About half an hour after I finished mopping (it had, very obviously been on the mop since I pulled it out to mop that morning). When I was six months pregnant. Since then I kill the arachnids in my home. But I still don't get too worked up about seeing spiders.

And this is the smallest spider ever. It is the size of an ant. Not one of those big ol' army ants, one of those teeny tiny itty bitty ants that you almost can't see. How this thing ever attracted the attention of my two-year-old son I have no idea.

"Sblehbleh," Ike repeats. (Obviously he was saying sblehbleh rather than sbleh bleh, silly mom.)

"Did you find a spider?" I ask.

"Yeah." (Probably the only word he says that someone who doesn't live with him would understand.)

"Is he a little baby spider?" Of course I'm talking in high pitched baby talk voice.

"Yeah."

"Is he cute?"

"Yeah."

"Do you like that little spider?" I ask innocetly.

"Yeah," he says. And then stands to his full hight of nearly two and a half feet. He lifts his cute little size 6 sneaker. And stomps on the spider.

*sigh*