What I Know For Sure

I am going to miss Oprah this fall.  Sure she got preachy over the years and some of her interviews were more about her than anything else; like when she would ask an uber-celebrity "can you imagine getting this kind of standing ovation everyday?"  But damn it I loved my Oprah show and loved knowing it was on everyday at 4 p.m.


Dr. Oz is taking over her time slot in my viewing area.  I like him.  Honestly, I depend on him, and Dr. Sanjay Gupta from CNN, for most of my health news.  If they tell me to vaccinate, I do it.  If they tell me to use a sinus thingy, the Neti Pot, I do it.  Yup, I am that person.


But I am uneasy about the change this fall, and I will miss Oprah.


Maybe there is more that is making me uneasy.

• My husband added about 40 more hours a week to his job and I am uneasy about it.  How am I supposed to be everything my kids need me to be?  And get them all the places I need them to get to?  Basically alone.
• JT, my 5-year-old, is a mess.  He needs routine, he needs everything to be the same more than your average kid.  He has trouble with his speech (which I still think is adorable) and it makes him nervous about kindergarten.  What will his little life be like next week when school starts?
• My 9-year-old Peyton is so over-scheduled.  And I think he has the flu, because his virus just won't go away.  My mom instinct/gut feeling is all off with what to do for him.
• Lucy is having bad dreams about sharks.
• Financially we are not in a good place.
• I am supposed to visit my mother again this weekend.

Okay, or maybe it is just Oprah.


In her magazine, which I subscribe to of course, Oprah has a page titled What I Know For Sure.
In honor of Miss O, here is what I know for sure:
I will miss this about summer.

Proving my southern roots, because I will so miss fresh tomatoes and delicious fried okra.

My beloved  peaches.

No news is good news.  I have taken a sabbatical from watching the news and even though I am less informed, I feel happier.


Bethenny Frankel is an f-ing genius.  SkinnyGirl Margaritas are amazing and I don't feel as guilty drinking a whole bottle alone, in one night. Okay, not so sure about no guilt about that one night, alone thing.


It is a small world, so be careful on Facebook.  Be very, very careful.  (Twitter too of course.)


TV is my best friend.  Sad, but true.  And every year, I am almost as excited about new tv shows as I am about my kids going back to school.


I have been obsessed with The Avett Brothers since my brother gave me some of their music for Christmas.  I know for sure that I love them.


We are never going to be in a financially good place and with four kids, I should just accept it.


I will never be taller, and that is alright.  Okay I might not be totally sure that is alright.

Reprint with my iphone, pic quality not so great.

When we got this family photo taken on the beach, I know for sure that I felt like a real grown up.


And I know for sure that, even though uneasy, I am very lucky girl.  Very, very lucky.

Help! People are judging me

This is one of my favorite clips from "Modern Family." With possibly one of the best lines in a long time on tv, when he is calling the emergency line and saying "help, we locked our baby in the car and people are judging us."  Love it.  And of course the Cam scream.  Love it.


I felt like calling an emergency line tonight.  


As I told my daughter Lucy, not everyone thinks our kind of wild is so cute.


Tonight the location was the football team pictures of my oldest son.  It took forever.  My other three kids were doing what is, well, normal for us.  They were running around like crazy chickens.  And I was running around after them trying to keep them out of the team photo.


Many of the dads looked at me with stone faces.  One  dad pointed and gruffly said "Your baby went that way."


Some of the moms pursed their lips together like nervous ninnies with looks on their faces that said "if you don't stop that damn baby from ruining my kids' team picture, I will."


Personally, I would have felt much happier to spend my $20 photo fee if some baby ran through the team picture and caused some real genuine looks of amusement on the boys' faces.   Instead of those painful, awkward looking grins.





But I am a believer in what I told Lucy, not everyone thinks our kind of wild is so cute.


And some nights I care and feel like calling help in because people are judging me and my wild family.  Usually, that is when I do indeed call my good buddy Stephanie who asks me this very important question, "who wants boring kids?"  Love it.


My kids are good kids, just a little, exuberant and energetic. But definitely not boring.  
And I love those crazy chickens and our kind of wild.

And let's be real....there are so many other things about me that people could (and quite possibly with a good bit of reason) judge.

The Game of Life

I quoted John Madden this weekend.  Never really thought I would do that.  But I looked at my son and said "Just like John Madden said, I hope you kids playing football are having fun."

Now my son, Peyton, the football player, thinks that John Madden is a video game character so it didn't really resonate.  Peyton looked at me like I was a little crazy, but what's new?


This weekend Peyton played his first tackle football game.  He has practiced Monday through Friday for the past several weeks.  There was a scrimmage along with high expectations and nerves.  And finally a game.  

Even though I despise the time commitment and the idea of my son getting hurt, I sucked it up and made him a huge pep rally like sign that said "Go Bulldogs! We love you # 17!"  My other kids helped color it.  We played an awesome drum line on itunes and marched the sign/banner into the kitchen on game day.  My serious son nodded his head and quietly said, "thanks."   


"Don't you like it?" I asked like a needy teenage girl.


"Yeah, but just don't bring it to the game," only 9 and already so worried his family will embarrass him.


I rolled up the sign and turned off the drum line feeling flustered like a rejected, needy teenage girl.


Peyton and his dad, both a bundle of nerves, left early for the game. After they were gone I freaked out a little from my own nerves....


Football is a really interesting beast. The intensity, the dads, the tackling, the time commitment, yada, yada, yada.


After pulling myself together I scrambled to get the other three kids together and make it to the game on time.  It was a hot day and I was worried about Peyton playing since he had been battling a fever on and off all week.  Even though I knew his chances of getting in the game were slim because of missing practice, I still wanted to be there to support him.


Racing into the stadium five minutes late, I missed it.  He went in for the injured quarterback for a few plays and I missed it.  My heart sunk, one part of me was so sad.  The other part of me was so annoyed that I spent an hour getting everyone out the door and we missed it.  


But I didn't miss this.

My husband, one of the coaches, telling my boy, "You did a great job son."


Now to quote someone else I never thought I would, Joe Namath.  He said, "Football lessons you learn as a kid, you continue to apply for the rest of your life.  Life is a team game, it's the big game."


So, here we go, after seeing just that one moment on the field I'll buy it Mr. Namath.

For the rest of this weekend's game I hung out under the bleachers with the other kids.  (So funny considering what my memories are of being under the bleachers at a football game in a past life.)  


Here is what I am quoting from, a video by Kenny Chesney, a little heavy on the sentimental, but good:

The Julian Lennon Incident

The fall of 1985 I was 11 and my world was changing in so many ways.  I started my period, my parents got divorced and then there was the Julian Lennon incident.   


The beginning of sixth grade was really the end of my innocence.  My only worries were remembering my locker combination, finishing my homework and talking about boys.  But then in November, my dad told my sister and me he was moving out.  My first reaction was "cool now you and mom will stop fighting!"  And he told us we could get waterbeds at his new apartment which sweetened the deal even more.  So innocent and naive, I really thought life would get even better for all of us.


But maybe an even bigger tragedy of 1985 was when a good friend of mine, a boy, said these words "You look just like Julian Lennon."

What?  Are you kidding me?  I was an 11-year-old girl coming of age in the eighties and a boy just told me I look like some guy.  And not a pretty guy like Rob Lowe.  I was devastated.  


And to make it worse, my dad didn't buy us the waterbeds.








I immediately took it upon myself to look prettier.  So I looked to style icons like Heather Locklear and Heather Thomas (the girl from "The Fall Guy"), remember it was the eighties.  I bleached my hair, teased it and tried to look sweet and slutty at the same time, just like they did.


And of course I become obsessed with doing my make-up like Donna Mills from "Knots Landing."  Each morning I would meticulously pile on the make-up according to the Donna Mills tutorial I had.  Yes, at 11, 12 and 13 I was wearing Donna Mills eyes to middle school
So fast forward to today.  I am mostly over the divorce of my parents, sure it changed me, but I am okay.  But the Julian Lennon incident....well, it pretty much wrecked me.


Now I fear that I will be ambushed....by a perky makeover team.  Of course being on tv would be a dream come true, but not for that reason.  I always feel so badly for those poor people pulled out of a crowd and told they really need a makeover.

But more and more I am convinced that if I am ever standing in a crowd outside of "The Today Show" window, they just may grab me.  And Kathie Lee and Hoda would raise their glasses of wine and nod in agreement that I so need a makeover.

Because I can't let go of this....

frosted lipgloss.  

The 99 cent kind you can get at Walgreens.  I feel like I am confessing a giant fashion sin, but I can't stop frosting my lips, circa 1985.  At least I don't bleach my hair, oh wait I do, but I don't tease it anymore. 


I guess there are worse things to get addicted to, but I can't leave home without my frosted gloss.  I always wondered how it happens on those makeover shows.  How do people insist that what their blue eyeliner looks good or not cutting their hair ever is a good thing.  Now I know...maybe someone said something.  Maybe someone told them Crystal Gail is the coolest woman on the planet and it stuck.  

Who knows exactly, but now I know there is always more to the story.

And you know what, I have matured a little because I can admit, maybe that boy back in 1985 had a point.

Look what else I found in my purse that might lead to a whole different kind of ambush.

Yet another violent, plastic toy I confiscated from my sweet, darling children.

Back to School Revolution

After a few days of sickness, bitterness and resentment in our house, it was time for a change.

I find it is better to surrender to the children rather than try to control them.  Once I understand and accept that they are really in charge, the day goes a lot smoother.  The day also goes smoother when I realize I only have 10 more days until school starts.  
And then their teachers can surrender to them!

So we played games, ate junk food, watched tv, played house, played ninja 

(but I was really only the narrator in this game, no costume for me) and even did some arts and crafts.  It was all going very well.

Until I suggested that my daughter finally finish her thank you notes for her grandparents.  It was not something that she was in charge of and it did not go over well.  What was I thinking?

Three hours later 2 out of 3 of the thank yous were completed.  Homework this fall should be so much fun. 

I decided to focus on the positive, because that is where I am today.  A land of possibility!

A new school year is a new start for all of us.  So I am going to make my back-to-school resolutions, which is good because I totally failed with my new year's resolutions.  Fresh start and possibility....a totally new me.  

I asked my kids what their resolutions were.

"What's a revolution?" asked JT as he raised his sword.  

"To get a perfect score on the MEAP," said my overachieving, ready to impress eldest child Peyton.  The MEAP is a standardized test that is made for kids just like him.

"Um, well, I guess, my revolution is to stop looking at other people's papers and copying," said Lucy shrugging her shoulders and skipping away in her ninja costume and heels.

Good stuff.

My resolutions include:

• Finding the perfect morning routine that gets the children to school loaded up with a healthy brain-food breakfast and no anxiety.
• Actually spending time with the baby, Wade, while the others are at school and finally reading him a book.
• Learning to love little league/pee-wee football.  If your kid is in it you understand, you have no choice in it taking over your life.  So you better learn to love it.
• Not getting mad at my husband and playing the who works harder and is more tired game every night.  
• Drinking less wine.  I must admit I was going to name this post "How blogging made me an alcoholic" because I am enjoying a glass or two or three with each post.
• Tweeting more.  Yup, that's right I really want to get skilled in...Twitter.  

So positive right?  

As my beloved, crazy mother said to me years ago, "You are a real f@#*ing Pollyanna."  

That's me alright.

Good stuff.

Nothing cute about today

I have no cute story today.  Not really anything cute about today.


I just have pictures from my fun visit to the pediatrician's office for, wait for it....a stupid virus.

Do you like how my oldest Peyton doesn't sit with us in the waiting room?  He is looking around like "who are these kids?" Ha!

Is it bad that I was hoping my son had strep throat?  Because that way we could get an antibiotic and it would be done in a couple days.  But no, he has a fever virus that could last a week, or two.  What?  A week or two times four kids?  And two parents?  With the countdown to the first day of school in full swing?

Are you kidding me?


And of course we waited in the dr's office for an hour and a half to get the fun virus news.  Things were getting a little nuts in our teeny-tiny room.

My husband hates this shirt, but I wear it because it makes me feel powerful, like I am wearing a cape.  Although, he may be right about it not being so flattering.  And at this point I was feeling a bit powerless.
He's right, I hate this shirt!

 A little practical joke my kids played on the dr. when she came in the room.
Luckily she was good natured and laughed!

You can bet that THEY were as happy as we were when we left.

A work in progress

Aside from the very fun video (if I do say so myself) I made for this blog not working we have had some other technical difficulties this week.

Technical difficulties with eyeblack.  

A necessity for my five year old who likes to put it on all by himself of course.

Technical difficulties with weather.  

On our way to the glorious sand dunes on Lake Michigan this weekend and we drove into skies like these.

Technical difficulties with focus, and expectations.

I need a new, fancier camera to fix the focus problem.  And I need to prepare my daughter for coping with plans changing to fix the expectations problem.

The problem is I don't know how!

It doesn't take a real genius to see what a number I am doing with my kids.  For example,  my morning routine.  Over the years as we were getting ready for school I have compared my minivan (mv) to a bank robber's getaway car.  As we race around grabbing whatever we can stuff in our backpacks I am yelling "go, go, go!"  Then we pile in the mv, some kids head first, and it is pedal to the metal out of the driveway.   

Then I wonder why the kids have anxiety about getting somewhere on time.  Or missing the bus.  

  

Another example of how I am corrupting my kiddos is my emotionality.  After growing up with a kooky mother, I swore I would never cry in front of my children.  Well, obviously I swore that way before I had my own kids.  But it still is different I am not crying to my child about how much I hate their father or how they are horrible little hateful children.  And I am not telling them I am crying because they don't love me.  Now of course I would NEVER do that (although I might say those things once when they are teenagers, I am only joking!).  

Anyway, forever I have told my kids I am crying because I am tired.  So they think they have the most exhausted mother in the world.

"Um Mommy, cool eyeblack," JT said to me one night after I had cried about something and my mascara ran onto my cheeks.

But they also know I cry at their dumb "America's Got Talent" show, when there is an inspirational story about the dance team that is trying to stay off the violent streets of Chicago.  

I cried a couple weeks ago during the happy ending in "Rio" because they all found love...the birds, the people and even the little homeless child.  Sorry, I should have typed spoiler alert if you were planning on getting Rio on demand later.

I also teared up yesterday because Jennifer Garner is pregnant with her third child and I am so happy for she and Ben Affleck.  What the hell?  

And yes, I cry a little when there are technical difficulties, like schedule changes; sick kids that don't seem sick enough to skip practice, but are sick enough to make you confused; and blogs that don't work.

But they are temporary and there are ways of fixing and coping.  The eyeblack is cute to me, so no biggie.  I need to accept that I cannot and never will be able to control mother nature.  And I am saving up for the camera.

The expectation/coping thing....a work in progress, just like the blog, that I will try not to cry about too much.

And as far as the morning school routine, we shall see in two weeks.  I just know it will be perfect because I am so much more organized this year and the kids are older and....  Crap, there I go again with the expectations being too damn high.  A work in progress.

Technical difficulties

I apologize for technical difficulties with the video in the last post.


Youtube sucks.


I promise a bigger, better video with a way better song.  And THEN I will dare you not to dance.


Bummer.  Sorry.

I dare you

I dare you not to dance to the video I posted below. Seriously. I dare you.  

I think it is impossible.

I also dare you to leave a comment here on my blog.  Even if it is, "you are the cheesiest chick ever" kind of comment.

Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo

When I was five years old my parents moved the family to a place called Kalamazoo, Michigan.  They bought me and my sister and brother shirts that said "Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo." They happily took pictures of us and sent them to their friends and family.  


My mother had never lived anywhere but the south...Alabama, Kentucky and Texas to be exact.  Michigan was a novelty, but to move to a place named Kalamazoo, they found that hilarious.  Kalamazoo was an adventure for the whole family.  A new career for my father and a new life for us with great lakes and snowy winters.  


The first few years were like a storybook.  We all went cross country skiing as a family and my parents went snowmobiling.  We picked berries, which my mom called dew berries and we were convinced they were special Michigan berries.  We picked them in the fields around our house and my mom made jam and pies.  During the summers we would spend long afternoons on the beaches of Lake Michigan which was 45 minutes away.  The rides to the beach were filled with card games and my mom playing her Alabama cassette tapes over and over and over.


Yes, there really was a Kalamazoo and it was god damn amazing.  Magical.  
Until, it wasn't.  


Now I go back there to visit my mother, who after years of living in California moved back to Michigan.  As I start getting closer to Kalamazoo, my stomach is in knots and my shoulders tense up.   


I never know what to expect when I visit my mother.  Many doctors are surprised she has lived so long considering the drugs she has been on for 20 years.  


My last visit was in January when her doctors called me and suggested I put her in an assisted living facility.  Now my sister and I have been getting calls for years now about how my mother has been admitted to the hospital for accidental drug overdoses, and many times we feared she would die.  My mother is the one that always said "mean people live the longest" and she seems to be proving that point.


When I rushed over to take care of my mother in January, I was very tense.  Earlier that morning when I was getting dressed, I decided I should put on a flower pin I had just made.  I wanted to wear it because it made me happy, it was a silly little thing, but I wore it like a badge of bravery.  I walked into her hospital room expecting the worst and my mother slowly propped herself up and said "well, well, look who is here."  She rubbed her eyes and said in a slurry, southern drawl,  "What is that on your shirt?  A wadded up piece of tissue?" She snorted.  Then she grabbed onto the nurse's arm who was checking her vitals and she pointed at me.  "Look at my daughter, she came in here with a wadded up piece tissue on her shirt."  She cackled and then fell back onto her stiff hospital pillow like it took everything out of her to insult me.  What the hell?


She continued to insult me about my appearance, how I don't have any money and how she couldn't believe I was the one sent to take care of her.  


As it turns out, you can't send someone to assisted living who won't go.  You also can't send them to a psych ward or drug rehab if they won't go willingly either.  This free country thing sucks sometimes!


I ended up running around the hospital like Shirley McClain begging for someone, not to give my daughter the shot, but to please take my mother off my hands.  The doctors told me she was an opiate addict with a probable mood disorder with nothing else physically wrong with her, so she would have to go home with me.  They took away many of her pain meds and off we went.  They were nice enough to give me several pamphlets on counseling services available for family members of drug addicts.  My mother was smug as I wheeled her down the hall.


When she is mean, ridiculing and spiteful it is so much easier to handle.  I can take it.  It validates all of my knots and tension, and frankly a lot of my issues.


The worst is when she is nice.  Like this past weekend.  I haven't been back since the January incident.  This time I took the kids and Tim.  Not sure what to expect we packed up for a quick weekend in the Zoo.


She had been ill the week before and was complaining about her doctor and how she needed to find a new one.  Code for...he is on to me and won't provide me with the correct pain meds.  I called Friday night before we left and she explained how she was just back from the urgent care where they gave her a shot of Dilaudid (a "mild" pain killer like morphine).  "Sooooo much better," she said in a sleepy voice.


When we arrived she was quiet and interested in my kids (that doesn't always happen).  This is the worst!  I look around her house and it is filled with silk floral arrangements, candles, ceramic angels, more candles, pictures, miscellaneous doo-dads and books.  "Is it too much?" she asked.  Um, yes.  But I said "Nope, if it makes you happy."  It makes me sad.  


Her closet is overflowing with brightly colored, be-jeweled shirts on hangers and on the floor, many with the tags on them.  When I saw her closet, my chest started to hurt.  The only people that see these shirts are her doctors and the young guys at the bank she goes to every other week.  


I found an old photo album laying on the floor and in it was one of those pictures of me, my brother and sister in those "Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo" shirts circa 1981.  My chest felt like someone was jumping on it, it hurt.  


My heart hurt for all the magic that was lost.


My mother called me into the room and begged me to take her to the urgent care for another shot because her legs were aching so badly.  But I have been through this routine so many, many times.  I calmly told her they would probably turn her away and she should just rest.  Surprisingly she did (she probably went in for another shot after we left).


Worried about how my children would respond to Grammy going through withdrawal on the couch, I suggested they play outside.  But Lucy climbed right up next to her and snuggled her, JT sat down and played with her dog next to the couch and Peyton told her he hoped she felt better.  Their special kid wisdom/compassion sense kicked into overdrive.  Without a big talk, without explaining "Grammy is a drug addict and needs to lay down," the kids understood what they needed to do...be there and give her some love.


Maybe there is still some magic in Kalamazoo.  
But boy is it heartbreaking and heavy.

Sh*@ my kids say (that I don't correct)

"That's willy shawsome," says JT.  He meant to say really awesome of course.  

And of course I find it really adorable.  I can't help it.  


JT, now 5, didn't say much of anything before he was 3.  He has been in speech therapy for 3 years and recently "graduated" out of the free services.  Yes, even though he can't say his Rs, Ss and some other sounds, he has graduated.  Supposedly "we" don't worry about those sounds until 4th grade.


Okay, so for now it melts my heart.  Here is this kid who can kick a teenager's ass playing Wii and isn't afraid to play baseball against giant 8-year-olds, but he can't say some simple words.  He is still such a little boy.

I do worry about kindergarten in a couple of weeks.  The Brady Bunch episode with the boy that teased poor, sweet Cindy about her lisp has replayed in my head a lot.


It may not be so cute then.  


Just like how I let my oldest say words wrong because they were cute, until I was afraid he would be made fun of.  He didn't have delayed speech he just said a few words wrong like all kids do.  Gatoregg was the one he said up until last year, but I finally pulled him aside and told him the correct way to say it.  The kids on the baseball team were looking at him like he was nuts, I had to do something.


Lucy has said pupcakes instead of cupcakes forever.  We have all tried to tell her the correct way to say it and her reply is "that may be what you call them, but I call them pupcakes." 

But I have other things to worry about.


Like my immaturity in dealing with words describing body parts.  This all happened because of a misunderstanding, not any speech issue or cute coming of age thing.  No this is all on me, literally.


I am built like a chubby boy, yes, that means I have a big gut and no well, um, ...I can't even type the correct words, let's say no chest.  So when I have been pregnant and my, er, chest changes in size, my children have been astonished.  When Lucy was 2 and I was pregnant and dancing in the kitchen, shimmying to be exact, Lucy said, "Oh my, Mommy, look at your shimmies."  Her mouth open to the floor she couldn't believe the size of my shimmies.  I laughed and didn't think twice about it.  


Over the years, somehow she changed the word to shivvies.  And guess who doesn't correct her.  The other day she said "My bathing suit came down and showed my shivvie."  Oh, don't judge me yet, there is more.  She calls her other part her china.  Yup, that's right.  And guess who doesn't correct her.


I get nervous and can't make eye contact with the kids.  And then I say "privates are private let's not talk about them."  That is not right, I know.  And I also know that I will need to get better about talking about this.  In fourth grade, when the old sex ed is taught at school I am sure Lucy will be the one raising her hand and say "you may call it that, but I call it a china."


It may not be so cute then.

No one like my girl Lulu

Lulu, that is what we call our lovely daughter Lucy.


I love this girl.
I want the world for this girl.
No one can make me frustrated like this girl.
No one makes my heart burst with a weird love/worry/anxious/ happiness like this girl.

Lucy, she is quite entertaining and opinionated.  And funny.


During her preschool graduation ceremony her teacher was saying nice things about each child and when she got to my daughter she said "Lucy is the most hilarious child here."  True that.  


This was the same ceremony where each child said what they wanted to be when they grew up.  The boys wanted to be firefighters and the girls wanted to be Disney princesses.  But not Lucy she firmly stated that when she grew up she wanted to be "a cop."


She got a laugh and then sat down on her little preschool chair with a very satisfied grin.


Lulu knows what she is doing...she is brilliantly witty.  Her timing is great.  She is like the funny, biting sidekick in every sitcom.  She waits for the moment, her moment, and then she nails her line.

Today as we were leaving the pool at our gym a boy walked by and stared at Lucy. "Do you know that kid?" I asked.


"Oh yeah, that's the boy I kissed on the lips," she replied.


What????? "Oh, honey, why didn't you say hi," I asked calmly.  I know I probably should have said something addressing the kissing...I will, later, maybe.  When I am less tired, maybe.


"We are so over," she stated flatly.  And when I let a small giggle escape, she sat down in her booster in the van with a very satisfied grin.

She is so not like me in so many ways.  Lucy is unafraid to ask anyone anything--in a store, school, the street.  If she wants to know the answer, she will find a way to get it.  Sometimes my shy son and I will send Lucy to find out where a certain item in the grocery store is or what time a show is starting or whatever.


She is so like me in many ways too.  Lucy is horrible at math and my god I hope and pray she gets better.  Because it never happened for me.  She is emotional and very headstrong--which are powers that can be used for good, but can also cause tremendous unnecessary heartache.

Lulu lives in a land of make believe, gets distracted by EVERYTHING, hates sports, loves playing spy babies that save the world and could live on carrots, apples and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for every meal.  


Lulu has a biting wit that is beyond her years, has a hunger for information about so many things and isn't afraid to stand up for what she believes in (even if it is defending to the doubters(her brothers) that spy babies that save the world is a legit game). And man, she loves her brothers more than anything in the world.

Now how do I protect her from....the world? Because to me, there is no one like this girl.