The DeWitt Egg Bash

This year marked the 4th annual Egg Bashing Contest at my parents' house for Easter. For those who have never had the privilege of this tradition...... I will explain.

A strange fact of nature is the reason for our "game". When two hard boiled eggs are rolled towards each other and HIT....... only one of them prevails without a crack. The other is mourned over by it's maker.

We dye our eggs like everyone else, but then have one specific one picked out as our "racer". (The contest really isn't a race, but for some reason we call our game eggs "racers".) My mom then makes our bracket according to how many people are playing,

we draw numbers to see which round we play in and then the game begins.

The same strip of carpet is used each year, marked with masking tape to give us our official distance away from the opponent.

"Do the eggs hit each other the very first roll?", you ask.

No -- most of the time it takes a few rolls to actually get a HIT. So we have egg passers who hand the eggs back to their owners for the next roll.

Each match-up brings a smile for some and a pout for others.

(This was before Griffin was knocked out of the contest.)

THE FINAL ROUND 2008 -- Dad vs. Kevin

Only one can be named "CHAMPION" and receive the official plaque (which I forgot to take a picture of) to hang in their house for the entire next year. Who won it all?

MELVIN DOUGLAS DEWITT

So happy, so proud.

For the past couple years in our "unofficial second round" Jeff has made a .......... not so legal egg to race. This year his JEWEL ARMORED invention demolished each contender it came up against. ---- Leave it to Jeff.

Kai's Birthday Party

Some of you may have the same outlook on kid's birthdays as Jeff.......... "do they really need a party if they're not going to remember ANY of it?"

For the most part -- I agree -- but I also think that cake is always needed and if we happen to have a family get-together at a place the birthday boy enjoys....... what's the big deal.

This year we told whoever wanted to come, to meet us at Jeepers (previously known as Jungle Jim's Playland). It's this little pizza place with a huge free play area and cheap, cheap rides for the kids -- and adults -- to go on. Kai loves it there!! We didn't make it a big deal. Just pizza and cake and playtime. Here's a few pictures of the birthday boy:

He wanted the cupcake SOOOO bad!! We had to sing really fast. Usually he has an "issue" with the frosting on cupcakes or cookies but he just dug right in this time.

So, I'll end with a belated "HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAI !!!" Love you!

Simple Addition

What is the sum of

this ----------- PLUS -----------this ?

Answer:

Actually, I'd really like to blame it on the pregnancy, but I cried like a baby the first time I saw it and I was not "with child". So there you go......... I'M A SAP!!!

Tall Tales

Okay, so last night, Kai wasn't feeling too well and he went to bed a little earlier than Griffin. Since all the books we usually read are in the boys' bedroom, and we didn't want to disturb Kai, Griffin and I told stories instead. He was very excited.

So we went downstairs to the other bedroom and he got comfortable. I asked him what kind of story he wanted to hear first. "A Turtle Story", he said. So I proceeded to tell a story of the Ninja Turtles loosing their pizza. Afterwards, he said, "Was that a great story?" -- (Meaning "That was a great story" -- statement, not question). Wanting him to express his imagination, I told him to tell ME a story. He told a Ninja Turtle one very similar.

Next, I told a dinosaur story -- he followed with his own again -- then, wanting to end storytime with some happier characters, I told him a Max and Ruby story. (These are some very gentle Nickelodeon bunnies who are brother and sister.)

I told how Max and Ruby wanted cookies and milk, but they were all out of milk. So the mom gave Ruby some money to walk to the store and buy some. On the way, they passed a toy store. Max wanted to buy a toy, but Ruby said that they only had enough money for some milk. Another place they passed was a candy store -- same situation happened. They finally got to the grocery store and bought their milk, returned home, and enjoyed thier cookies and milk.

Griffin quickly said, "My turn!", after this story and continued with: "Once upon a time, Max and Ruby's mom didn't want to buy milk anymore. So she took them to the toy store and told Max he could pick out a toy. They took it up to the counter and the worker said, "YES !". And Max was sooo happy." ------- The story went about five minutes longer, but that was, by far, the funniest part.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM !!!!

It's sad that I had to search EVERYWHERE in my picture database to find one of my mom. I have a few, but most of the time, she's behind a camera too so it's hard to catch her. I'll have to do better at getting her on film because WAY, WAY, WAY in the future I want my kids to have pictures of "Grammy"............ not a whole bunch of pictures that Grammy took.

I think my mom is the best mom ever. There is always something to laugh about around her. She has an amazing sense of humor and looks FANTASTIC for having

EIGHT

BIG

DEWITT

BABIES !

Everyone says so. She has raised a fun, happy family and I will never be able to thank her enough for all the things I've learned from her.

Love you Mom!!!

TURTLE POWER !!!

Griffin has a friend that kind of got him hooked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. This was okay with me because I actually watched them growing up AND this new phase helped him pick out a toy at the store the other day (he was taking WAY too long).

Anyway, I did a menu search on our TV to see if they were still playing the cartoon now-a-days. I recorded the one episode I could find and was excited for him to watch it. This morning was the first time I watched a few minutes of it with him. Okay........ for those of you with memories like mine........these are my "TMNT":

Friendly looking and cute, right? Well, this is the image no longer. These are what the animated reptilians look like for today's kids:

Much more rough and tough........ a little scary looking, and.......THEY HAVE NO EYES! Well, kind of, but come on. What was wrong with the old guys?

So, the REAL point of my story is -- I'm not sure how many more episodes I'll let Griffin watch. He looked out the window today at some loud car driving by and yelled,

"WHAT THE SHELL?!"

There's only one place he could have heard that ............... from the mouths of these "heros in a half-shell", down in the sewers of Manhattan.

(Sigh)

CALLING ALL DOCTORS.....

For the last 4 nights, Kai has been up coughing. Usually he would cough for half an hour or so and then go back to sleep for a while. Last night, however, he didn't even fall asleep until 4:30 AM !!! I got desperate around 2:45 am and called the pediatrician's emergency line. A nurse called me back and said, "So your child has a cough." -------I could just HEAR her rolling her eyes.------

As always, she was not very sympathetic to the fact that he hasn't been sleeping AND along with the cough, usually comes mucus vomit.

She informed me quickly that medicine will not help and it's been all over the news that doctors are trying not to prescribe cough medicine to kids under 6 yrs. anymore. "Haven't you seen the reports? It's been all over the news.", she said. My reply was, "Uh, no. I don't have time to watch the news." Which is partially true. Usually when our TV is on, a kids show is playing. When I DO get a chance to watch..... I'm not going to waste my time listening to weather forecasts and reports about traffic or who was killed in downtown Phoenix last night. Sorry, not my first choice.

Anyway, her advice was to give Kai plenty of fluids, use a vaporizer (which we have been -- no help), or if possible, sit in a steamy bathroom for 15 minutes or so. At that point I was willing to try ANYTHING. So I turned the shower on and sat on the toilet with Kai kicking away the whole time. I don't think we even made it to 15 minutes because.......... THE FIRE ALARM WENT OFF!!!! Yeah, that's what I said, "WHAT!!??" The steam from the shower had set it off which then set off all the other alarms in the house. Not a good night.

I was just wondering..........with all the advances in medical science today, are you telling me that NO ONE can come up with a cough medicine that actually works and is NOT dangerous!! Come on.