Adventures of the Three Boys

Haiku

 

Feels like the flu, but

Not enough to be bed-bound.

LEGOs all over.

And I'm Back

Amazing what ten days of sleeping late, cooking, watching movies and laughing with family and friends will do for your spirit. 

Today it was 14 degrees at wake-up time but I still had to convince Nick and Keith to wear coats that were more substantial than just hoodies.  Hopefully we will get a few flurries of snow as a treat for the kids back in school this week. 

I spent time converting a sitting room space from a collection of a bunch of books and papers and piles of scrapbook stuff into an actual office area.  Hence my desire to sit and type in the spare 4 mintues before I have to run out the door.  So that's what a desk is for...

So I will start the New Year with a poem, courtesy of Nick, called Pancakes:

 

pancakes

delicious, yummy

flipping, sizzling, fizzling

party in my belly

flapjack

Monday

So I am sitting here trying to think of what I had told myself about 20 times today that I was going to write about, but I can't remember.

It may have been about Nick's comment that the "Walk Like An Egyptian song" is "mostly rap" or that he began a story to Gavin with, "Our ancestors...such as our Mom..."

Or it may have been about Keith, who proudly tells people he just turned four and is feeling his way around the words "no" and "willn't."  Like when I say:  Don't stand on the chair.  You are going to fall down and spill your juice.  Then he says:  No I willn't.  

Notice that I didn't tell him that he was going to get hurt because, really, physical harm is no motivation to small boys.

I am currently reading a blog (that I also can't remember, geez) and it is a guy who promised himself he would blog every day for a year.  Hilarious.  Probably more entertaining for him than us, but pretty darn entertaining for us, too.  

If I had to blog just today, I would have to mention that in some of my not-so-good parenting moments, I made Nick cry before school today. Something about him being asked for the 4th time, literally, to put shoes on and then forgetting for the 5th day in a row to brush his teeth, in the wake of not making his bed or getting his school stuff together but finding time to make some LEGO scenes and draw a picture.  

Then I showed up at the gym for the first time since MARCH.  THE MONTH OF MARCH.  Like, SEVEN months ago.  I am now fantasizing about what I could have bought with seven months of gym membership.  Two pairs of really nice boots from Nordstrom.  A shopping spree at the makeup counter. A few weeks' worth of groceries.  Or maybe just a smaller butt by actually going to the gym.  Anyway, so I show up at the gym for the class that I have taken for years and I get there an hour late!  Darn those people who have been hip-hop dancing at 9:30 all these months, not 10:30.  No, the class hadn't changed.  Just my mind.

I also followed-up on the not-so-good parenting by scoring  goal for the Moms in the Moms v. Third-Grade Kids soccer game tonight.  Someone has to score, right?

I came home to find a cake pan on my porch that I had loaned to a neighbor.  She was going to do some volcanoes from this mini-pan that does four little cakes at a time.  We both decided the cakes really just looked like boobs and since the volcanes were for her 10-year-old son, she went with something else.  

Now it's off to football practice to  pick up Gavin, then get everyone in bed, get settled down to watch Monday Night Football while I really should be doing my Applied Sociology class...and most likely fall asleep in the chair.  Ahhhh.

 

What's in a Kitty Name?

Our benevolent neighbor gave us a box full of canned cat food.  We have no cats.  She is of a two-cat, no-dog family, and thought the boys would enjoy taking the food to the shelter to donate it.  She was more than right.  

We had to make sure that the viewing gallery was open so we could peruse the dogs and cats waitng for a new home.  Gavin insisted on carrying the box because he fancies himself to be an animal whisperer, and the very nice officer (sort of scary seeing an animal control officer in uniform) encouraged him to pursue his dream of becoming a veterinarian.  

We decided to visit the dogs first, mostly because they were barking their heads off.  We saw the sweet, sad Pitbulls with the Not For Adoption stamps on their little cards.  We saw the old, overweight pair of Chihuahuas that had a friendly I'm Adopted stamp on their cards.  We saw the huge German Shepherd that seemed to be saying actual words with his eyes.  We wanted to buy a farm and adopt them all.

Next to the cats.  Ah, the cats.  We are not cat-owners but I am always fascinated at how they are like minature copies of lions and tigers.  The best part, without a doubt, is reading the names and realizing that some animal control workers were probably watching a lot of cable TV and reading the tabloids over the weekend. 

We saw cats with the following names:

Tom and Jerry, two black kittens, 8 weeks old

Pippa, a slick, young tabby (my favorite cat name)

Steve-O, an impish male

Peabody, an orange-striped fluffy thing

The entire cast of Harry Potter was there, including Tom Riddle.  When we mentioned Tom Riddle, the worker noted that Voldemort was in the kennel.  The Harry Potter marathon was on ABC Family over the weekend, after all.

We met the usual Julie, Abigail, etc., but really, who wouldn't want a Tom Riddle?  It is animal-control marketing genius, just like the nail polish OPI.  Who wants to wear red or pink when you can wear We're Not in Kansas Anymore Red or Catch the Garter pink?  

Our animal control center has a 93% adoption rate.  I'm not saying the naming has anything to do with it, but a rose by any other name is still a rose.  I would much rather pick Rose at Dawn...Broke by Noon, by OPI.  

 

Swim Team Uniform

Nick, my 8-year-old, is on the swim team and three days into practice, developed swimmer's ear, which had really been brewing for a while.  This meant a $20 copay for the doctor, $20 in ear drops, $5 for those gooey silicone earplugs, $5 for preventative drops for the future, and a few days of missed practices.  

So when the very first swim meet came up on a Saturday, we were hoping he would be well enough to swim and er, get his feet wet with this new sport of his.  Alas, the morning of the swim meet there were many tears and there was much slovenly dragging of the body across the couch and just wincing in general. We worked on the earplugs, etc., etc., and I paused for a moment and let my motherly intuition work.

Light bulb.

Me:  Nick, do you not want to wear your swimsuit?

Nick: (through tears and pushed out lower lip) Well, not really.

A couple of days before we had purchased the team uniform, or "bikini" as he calls it, which is really a fairly modest spandex swimsuit, lined in the crotch, that covers hips to knees on the boys. So $45 later, for uniform and goggles, he was geared up and ready to compete. Granted, it is spandex and tight, so I get the trauma. 

Me: Does your swimsuit make you feel embarrassed?

Nick: (getting high-pitched) Soooorrt oooooffff.

Me: Why are you afraid of people seeing you in your swimsuit?

Nick:(full-on crying) I don't want them to see my peeeennniiss.

Me:  What if I let you wear your swim trunks over your uniform?  Then when we get there, you can wear whatever everyone else is wearing.

Nick: (sniffing) OK

So we get to the swim meet and there are all his friends, hilariously skinny in an 8-year-old boy sort of way, Kool-Aid mustaches, goggle straps flapping on their heads, all wearing their "bikinis" and finding it impossible to walk, not run, around the concrete edge of the pool. It was a great first swim meet and the uniform seemed to work out just fine.

Unfortunately, I saw a hole in the butt of the bikini as it was hanging in the laundry room this week, surely from scooting around with his buddies in-between swims on the pool deck while eating enough snacks for an army.  

I am not sure how spandex can be repaired, and I don't really want to invest any more in this sport where he competes about 90 seconds out of a 5-hour meet, but I am going to work hard to make sure that it does not provide any wardrobe malfunctions for him.

 

Dear LEGO, I Hate You

Dear LEGO,

You have populated my life with your little square-legged people and their very small weapons and accessories to the point that I feel like they might be coming to life at night and having a party while we sleep.

You have created such sweet masterpieces out of your teeny plastic blocks that I have felt compelled to spend money on things that look like ninjas, police departments and tiny replicas of Spongebob's Bikini Bottom. 

You have made your stores the single reason my children will ever agree to go to the mall, and you have hired workers that are cheery, happy, and love your crazy sculptures.

You made a movie called Clutch Powers that will have to admit is pretty darn funny, especially because it involves LEGO-humor, like when the guy tries to lift two heavy suitcases and his arms come off, or when that other guy builds the spaceship but leaves out one important part so he has to take it apart and build it again.

You allow my kids to be creative and create hybrid people of knights/mailmen/convicts and villages in which they can reside.  I put up with the ridiculous prices and never-ending product lines because I somehow believe that your toys are better than video games and TV.

You hurt my feet in vicious way when I step on you without shoes or socks, which seems to happen multiple times a day.

You caused me to pay $200 to get the motor in my automatic van door turned off because "a little plastic piece" got wedged in between the motor and the cable that made it work.  That was cheaper than the $1K+ it was going to cost to replace the part.

You keep my kids begging to see the toys at Target because you seem to have something new every time we are there, and I even gasped with excitement when I saw that stupid space shuttle.  

You appeal to the part of me (I guess that's all of me) that has no female children because my boys will never have a dollhouse and I just adore those mini figures.  

I will be able to tell you all these things in person very soon, when we visit LEGOLand in Florida.  See you then.