No Bones

Part of the reason we are leaving the city to move to a suburb is because of the completely unpredictable and potentially dangerous situations that can occur. And then there are those situations that just piss me off.

Last year the kids saw this life-sized skeleton in a catalog. It wasn't a cheesy plastic one, it looked very realistic, weighed about five pounds and I think I paid $150 for it. But it was really cool. Last year we had him lounging on the wicker chair with a real feather crow on his shoulder and his feet up on the coffee table.

This year Charlie decided he wanted the skeleton to be standing up. Mark got some twine and hung him from the porch, and used wire to suspend his hands like he was waving. We were all totally thrilled with the outcome. Well, about a week later someone stole our skeleton.

I was dreading breaking the news to Charlie. I imagined him crying in disappointment. When he finally came downstairs for breakfast I said, "Char, I have some bad news."

"What is it?"

"Someone stole our skeleton."

Very pragmatically, "Why?"

"Well, my guess is they liked it and didn't have enough money to buy one and so they stole ours."

Then we had the required reminder that they were not bad guys, just people who made a bad choice to steal because stealing is wrong and against the law.

"And rude." He reminded me.

"Yes, rude."

There was a long pause, as Charlie stared off into space, as he often does when he is thinking. Then came to and said "I knew we should have put him sitting down. He probably got tired and went to someone else's house."

True Story

When I was pregnant one of the times I actually started to brush my teeth with hair gel.

Peaches and Curry

"Politically correct." One of my favorite terms. Is it "black" or "African American?" My brother-in-law has black skin but he is not of African descent. His mother was born in Dominica, he grew up in England, then served in the US Navy.

Since very early on Charlie has referred to African Americans or blacks or "people with skin like Uncle Colin" as "brown." He recently made a new friend at school, a brown boy named Benjamin. "Mom, if you see a boy with a blue shirt and brown skin, that's Benjamin." What was so funny about it is that they wear a uniform, and all the boys wear blue shirts. Recently Charlie got the esteemed 96 pack of crayons and discovered the various skin-toned crayons from burnt sienna, raw sienna, peach, apricot, tan, bittersweet and burnt orange. He pointed out last night that I am peach.

So, back to political correctness. It's no longer sitting "Indian style" it's "sit like a pretzel" or "criss-cross applesauce." You can't call anyone an "Indian giver," and don't get me started on "Smear the Queer."

On the way home from dinner out Mark mentioned that a man he works with asked if we were going to the India Festival, but he misspoke and called it the "Indian Festival."

Charlie, from the far back seat "Indian Festival, I want to go."

"It's not what you think, honey," I replied. "What you're thinking of are Native Americans, Indians are people from India."

"Yes, not like cowboys and Indians, like you're thinking," my husband added. "Native Americans are the people who lived here when the Europeans came. The Indians we're talking about come from a country called India."

"So they don't go woo woo woo woo woo?" Making a circle with his lips and patting it with his hand (you all know what I am taking about).

"No," Mark replied. "They're really quiet and sit at desks in front of computers."

Hey Diddle Diddle

For those of you keeping up, this Sunday Charlie's second fiddle lesson was scheduled. He gave me a bunch of crap about not wanting to go, that he wanted to quit. I thought about it and said, "Ok, we'll quit." He followed me into the living room, and said "Mommy, you look mad." I told him I wasn't mad, I was sad and that I didn't want him to keeping doing it just because I wanted him to. He ran out the back door yelling gleefully "Daddy, I'm going to quit!"

The teacher has still not called me back to send me a refund.

A Benefit of Thumb-Sucking

Yesterday, we were leaving the gym, I was of course doing five things at once, and Max ran like a bullet to the "grownup area" where the people were on the treadmills and elliptical machines. He ran so fast I had to run to catch up with him and grabbed his arm. How many times a day does a mom of a two-year-old have to do this? Well, while we were walking out to the car, I was holding his hand and he kept saying "ow."

When we got to the car, he was holding his arm limp. When I told him to squeeze my finger he squeezed it with the other hand. I was a little suspicious, so I gave him a train to play with and he played with it with one arm. I bribed him: "If you squeeze Mommy's hand you can have a pop-pop (our family's version of "lollipop.") He said "Ok," then squeezed with the other hand. I started thinking maybe I had broken his arm. I remained calm. I called the family doctor and told the nurse "I have a 2 1/2-year-old and he says his arm hurts, but I don't know if it does, or if he's just being 2 1/2." I was hoping the doctor would say "Bring him in and we'll check it out," but no. The answer was "Kids this age don't fake these things, take him to the ER."

Knowing it could be a long wait I picked up Wendy's and headed to the nearest hospital (only five minutes away.) On the way I called my husband and said "I may have broken Max's arm," and he said "I'm coming." I felt like telling him not to come, because I was not freaking out, but I have told him not to come many times and it has not been good.

We got to the ER, and he was the talk of the town. It's not a children's hospital, so nurses from all over the floor came to see him. The triage doctor came in and of course called for and x-ray. When everything sort of calmed down and we were sitting there waiting for the x-ray, and two minutes before my husband walked in, Max decided to sucked his thumb. Yes, the same thumb of the injured arm. I looked at the nurse as if to say "Do you see this?" She just smiled. Then he hopped off my lap, and jumped into daddy's arms, then started to dance. When I asked him about his arm, he said "Hurt all gone."

I am not a hypochondriac. My kid's arm was jacked up. Other people witnessed this. They took him in for x-ray anyway, and of course the arm was not broken. he most likely had something called "Nursemaid's Elbow" where the elbow gets a little bit dislocated and all they do to fix it is turn the hand palm-up and bring it up toward their face. Well, evidently he relocated it himself when he sucked his thumb.

The more people I talk to about this, I realize how common it is. If I had known this, I would have said to him, "I'll give you a pop-pop if you suck your thumb."

Suzuki Mom No More

I had been considering changing Charlie to a different Suzuki School for violin. Our present school was not convenient and I really did not like the director (see my previous post Cranky Suzuki Mom).

So I called another Suzuki School I had heard good things about. I emailed the director, she seemed really nice. They expected me to buy an electronic tuner, but that was fine. They were a little more expensive, but that was ok, too. I emailed the individual instructor the director suggested and found out she had a "keyboard requirement." This means the kids have to learn keyboard as they learn violin. Ok, to me, that's a bit much. It's hard enough to get Charlie to practice violin twice a week let alone throwing in keyboard. Not to mention I'd have to buy a keyboard. I emailed the director back and asked for a recommendation for another individual instructor who did not have a keyboard requirement (which she had offered up front to do anyway). At that point I got an email scolding about how the teacher she had recommended was the founder of the school, and students are lucky to be able to train with her.

Not long after this transpired a woman from our present school called asking for my email address. I told her "Well, we are changing Suzuki schools."

"Really, why?"

"Um, er, well, um, to be perfectly honest..."

"Yes?"

"I don't like the was Ginny interacts with my kid."

"Well, my son is in Book 4, and I have found Ginny to be very patient with him."

"Huh."

"I commiserate with other Suzuki Moms all the time. It's hard. It's not just music training, it's a parenting style."

Something clicked in my head. Something that had been bubbling just under the surface for a while. I don't know why it takes me so long to come to terms with things. I had been forcing myself, and more importantly, Charlie into a situation that was no fun. I mean, if it stressed me out, it had to be why he hated it.

"Well," I said. "I believe it may conflict with my parenting style."

I emailed the director of our school that day to tell her we were quitting. I emailed the woman from the other school and told her we were no longer interested. Nobody emailed me back. Nobody asked why.

The last chapter of this tale is I found Charlie a fiddle instructor. She didn't really mind how he held the bow. She let him sit down when he played. He's already learned the first two lines of "Bile Them Cabbage Down." The second line, I might add by ear.

I don't know if he's going to stick with it. He still complains about it, but we actually got through one thirty minute practice session Tuesday. He says he wants to quit, yet in the same breath says "When I get good, I will be able to play real fast."

For more information, read the Wiki on Suzuki Method.

Cookies or Cereal?

Charlie was walking out the door to play.

"Oreo, Mom."

"Oreo?"

"Yeah, that's goodbye."

"Don't you mean Adios?"

"No, oreo, it's goodbye in England."

The King

Yesterday Charlie asked me why it's good to be the king. What six-year-old asks such questions? Mine, I guess. I told him it's because traditionally the king has lots of money and jewels and gets to boss people around.

He thought about that for a minute, I could see the wheels turning in his head. "What about the queen, if she asks people for stuff do they bring it?"

"Yes," I said.

"So it's good to be the queen too?"

"I suppose so, but she doesn't get to boss people around as much."

"What if there is no king?"

"Then the queen is in charge, but usually the queen refers to the king's wife."

"What if the queen has a husband, is he the king?"

I'm getting a little tired, but Charlie isn't. He has much greater stamina for these things. "If the queen has a husband, he's a prince."

"Why do you call us princes, then?"

This too complicated, even for me. "Because you are special," I responded.

Not The Soft Shoe

Not too long ago we purchased a beautiful 37 inch LCD television. we did our research and for our viewing conditions (a lot of backlight and viewing from the side) LCD was better than plasma, and of course, also more expensive. Personally, I think it's a little silly. First of all, we are sitting ten feet from the thing at the farthest, so the size just seems ridiculous to me. Secondly, since there are only a handful of channels that broadcast in high-definition, what's the point? Having said that, ESPN is just such a channel, and it is pretty weird to be able to see the blades of grass when watching a golf tournament.

Well, we instituted a No Throwing Anything Ever rule. In the past soft balls and stuffed animals were ok, but now the game has changed. It is, after all, an LCD screen, just like on your laptop computer. You wouldn't throw a Transformer at your computer.

Several months passed and for the most part the kids were re-trained to the No Throwing Anything Ever rule. Then one day, while I was sitting on the toilet, Atticus (then 3 1/2) came sheepishly in (evidently we have an open-door policy) and said "I am sorry I jacked up the TV, Mommy."

"What do you mean, jacked up the TV!?!?" I finished and ran downstairs. I stared. I couldn't believe it. The liquid crystal behind the clear film had shattered like glass. "WHAT WERE YOU THINKING?!?!?" I repeated over and over until I almost hyperventilated.
Atticus very quietly replied "I didn't like Dora any more, so I threw my shoe."
"YOU THREW A SHOE!?!?!" I screamed. Go to your room. They never go to their room when I tell them to, but this time he did, and did so quickly.

I called my husband. How was he going to take the news that his baby was destroyed?
"The TV is dead, I cried into the phone, Atticus threw a shoe."
"He threw a shoe?!?! What was he thinking?"
"He didn't like Dora any more."
"What were you doing?"
"Pooping."

Later that night, Mark and I had a talk. He told me it was no big deal. He told me when I first called he thought someone was hurt. Then he told me his father had such a thing for his electronics: TVs, guitars, stereos, that Mark said sometimes he felt like his dad loved his stuff more than his kids. He said he didn't want to be like that.

In the next few days I made some calls. First I called the insurance company to see if it was covered. "No," my agent said. "With the policy you have it's not covered. Now, if he had thrown a shoe at your neighbors TV..."

Then I called the place where we bought the TV, and bought an extended warranty to see if it was covered. "No," the man said, "not for accidental damage. Now if a tree had fallen on your TV..."

Then I called the credit card company to see if they covered it. "No," the person said. I expected no less at that point.

Then I called Sony to see if we could get the screen replaced. To replace the screen would cost more than to replace the TV.

We watched it broken for a few weeks. The cracks creeped further and further until we could watch it no more. Sadly, we had no choice but to take it to the curb. Within five minutes there was a knock on the door. "Are you really throwing that TV away?" a woman asked. "Yes," I replied, "but trust me, it's not watchable and the screen is not replaceable." They took it anyway.

Several months later, just before football season, having been watching our old 24 inch TV had we had dragged from the basement, we decided to purchase a new TV. We went to Circuit City on a Saturday night (big mistake) and I was trying to keep three boys rounded up and stop then from destroying electronic devices while Mark talked to the sales girl. He had just about decided again on LCD. I walked up and said "What if a child were to throw, say, a shoe at a plasma TV?" "Nothing," she replied, "the screen is three layer of glass." Mark and I looked at each other and and simultaneously said "We'll take plasma, then." Then Max came up behind me and accidentally dropped his toy onto an LCD TV on the lower shelf.

"Yes," Mark repeated, "plasma."

Take Your Kid to Work Day

I know Take Your Kid to Work Day was in July, but every time I see this picture I giggle, so I thought I'd share.

First Day

For weeks I have been weeping because my first baby is going to kindergarten. One day a few weeks ago we were passing the school and he said "I am nervous about going full day because I will miss you... but I will have God."

Today was the first day. He got into his schoolboy uniform all by himself. We all walked down the street to school (including Daddy) and waited outside the door. Apparently when they say 8:00, they mean 8:00. He was the first kid to march in the door, put his backpack and lunchbox in a cubby and head into the classroom. He immediately started playing, and was excited to see a few boys he knew. Then we said goodbye, and he gave us all a hug. The goodbye between Charlie and Atticus was rather poignant, with a hug and a "lip kiss."

I let Atticus have quiet time with me. "It's no fun without Char-Char."

When he got home he gave me the play-by-play including the Pledge of Allegiance, snacks, recess and also said there was a lot of talking. Later, after snack the boys went outside to play. At one point Charlie got mad at Atticus, and got sent to his room. I held him for a minute and said "I know you're tired, you've had a long day."

"I'm NOT tired, it is the worst day ever."

"No," I said. "It's a very important day, your first day of kindergarten."

"Nuh-uh, the most important day is the first day of college."

Brothers

I'll tell you story about how sweet my two oldest boys can be. Don't get me wrong, there is a significant amount of fighting, hitting, wrestling and other things, and there was even some right before said story.

Atticus was told last Sunday if he buckled his own seat belt all week he could have his favorite movie on DVD, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT 2007). He did, and I got the DVD for him today. He immediately ran outside to show his brother, and within seconds they were both in the house begging to see it. Atticus hopped into the best seat in the house, Daddy's Chair. I cringed as Charlie also approached the chair because this very scenario has ended in fisticuffs on several occasions. Instead, Charlie said "Can I sit with you?" to which Atticus replied "Sure" (pronounced like "shut" without the tee). As they snuggled on the chair, and I was inserting the DVD I said "Charlie, you should thank Atticus. Because of his hard work you get to see this movie."

Charlie: Thank you, Atticus.
Atticus: You're welcome, Char (with a hug and a kiss on the cheek). I love you because you're my big brother.
Charlie: That's right. If you ever can't find Mommy, stick with me.

From the Mouths of Babes Part III

Atticus (age 4) had a fever today, poor baby. When we got home from lunch, he was ready for some Motrin and a nap. As he slowly walked up the stairs he said "Mommy, I feel like an old man instead of a little boy."

The Hope Diamond

We just returned from visiting Washington DC with the boys. We had a really great time, the best being Charlie's enthusiasm for the things we saw. "Oh my gosh" was said on several occasions. The one thing Charlie really wanted to do was see the dinosaur bones in the Museum of Natural History, so we made that our top priority. After we saw all the dinosaur bones (and there are A LOT) we were "'sploring" and I saw a sign for the Hope Diamond, and I expressed my desire to see the "biggest diamond in the world." For some reason Charlie was instantly excited. We walked through the maze of displays of quartz crystals and semi-precious stones, all the way Charlie pulling me saying he wanted to see the "big diamond." We finally got to the display case, which was surrounded with oooing and aaahing adults. Charlie danced in excitement, trying to see around all the people. Finally it was our turn.

"Isn't is beautiful?" I asked.

"Is that it?" Charlie asked, gazing into the case at the necklace perched atop the rotating display stand.

"Well, yes," I replied.

"I thought it would be bigger than that."

I laughed. "How big did you think it would be?"

"As big as THAT," he replied, pointing to a four-foot quartz crystal in the corner.

My subsequent lecture regarding the concept of the rarity of a flawless diamond this size was delivered to the retreating six-year-old, who had run off to check out the elephant in the lobby.

Cranky Suzuki Mom

Ok, so I went off on the violin teacher today. Well, not really, but I wasn't polite. She's exactly what you would imagine a violin teacher to be like. Quirky, cranky. When we first decided Charlie was going to take Suzuki Violin Silly Me assumed our instructor would be Japanese. Nope, she's this upper middle class white American woman who is about 60 years old, and have I mentioned she's cranky? The mom of Charlie's friend said to me "I think Elyse is a little scared of Miss Ginny" to which I replied "Well, Miss Ginny is scary."

First let me describe the room. It's about 10 feet by 20 feet and it's filled with little tables and chairs. It's really a classroom in a church, that only seconds as The Central Ohio School for Suzuki Instruction. So we all cram in this room, ten or so kids with violins, their moms, quite a few siblings and Miss Ginny. I take Max and Atticus along because I refuse to double the cost of Suzuki Violin by hiring a sitter every week. Usually they do well. They play with the other siblings, the kids all share Goldfish Crackers, read books, color, whatever. Usually it's pretty mild. The last few weeks, though, all the kids have been kind of whack. It's probably a summer thing. Last week the room was particularly crowded because of the table/chair configuration and the siblings also were kind of raucus. We moms were doing our best to keep the siblings quiet and be the proper Suzuki Mom. To be honest, the kids weren't being particularly loud or anything but twice Miss Ginny yelled "Kids, be quiet." Yeah, right. You might as well tell a bunch of two and three-year-olds to be loud, it doesn't make a difference.

I gave it a lot of thought throughout the following week. I figured I would bring some toys and let the boys play in the hallway just outside the door. That way I could keep and eye on them and their noise wouldn't be disruptive. So wrong was I. When Miss Ginny busted into the room like the Witch Hazel on Sylvester and Tweetie (you know, the one whose hairpins are always a step behind her) the first thing she croaks is "Whose trucks are in the hallway?"

"Mine," I replied. "I was hoping to lure my kids out there since you yelled at them last week."

Without even looking at me she said "Well, we can't have kids in the hallway."

Next week I'm just going to have to just take a Xanax.

Special Sauce

A friend of ours told us that this was the summer her husband was going to have The Talk with their 9-year-old son. At the rate Charlie is going, there will be no need for a Talk. Maybe he'll give us a Talk when he's 9.

Last week we were all driving in the car and Charlie was babbling away, asking a million questions. Somehow we got on the topic of how babies are made. He told us he knew how babies were made. He informed us that the baby grows in the mommy's tummy but that the baby is part of the daddy too. He went on to tell us that the daddy part comes from the "sauce" that comes from his testicles.

"Where did you hear about this sauce?" I asked.

"Nowhere, " he replied, "I thought of it myself."

Mark and I looked at each other out of the corner of our eyes. Mark started to speak, but I waved him off and said, "Oh, really, Charlie? What color is the sauce?"

"Red, like blood," he replied, matter-of-factly.

Whew!

Photo Drama Continued

For those of you following my photo drama (having lost almost all photos since 2002 when our hard drive crashed) I FINALLY have some good news. There are about 100 of our absolute favorite pictures of the boys I had forgotten I had uploaded to Snapfish. I am so excited! See... a picture.

en·ti·tle·ment

I still can't believe what just happened to me. I took all four boys (my three and cousin Xander, aged 7) to the pet shop to buy dog food. As soon as we walked in the door, the boys headed for the cats, where there were two women standing nearby and a little girl, aged 7 or 8, with some sort of disability, perhaps Down Syndrome. As soon as Max, my adoreable two-year-old arrived on the scene, the little girl started pawing at him with increasing intensity. I watched, waiting, actually, for one of the two women standing there, one of which I assumed to be her guardian, to intervene. One of the girl's advances launched Max against the cat cage and he started to cry. I flew in, scooped him up, and played off the incident by saying "You have two older brothers, you'll be okay."

Max and I moved on to the fish, which are his favorite. As we stood there, the little girl approached again, this time with much more vigor, actually picking Maxie up, which always sends him into a whining tirade. I stepped in right away this time, picked up Max and said "Hon, you're invading his personal space." Out of nowhere comes her mother, and the following is word for word what transpired (pretty much):

Her: She wasn't going to hurt him.

Me: I didn't say she was going to hurt him, I said she was invading his personal space.

Her: Don't you see that she has a disability?

Me: Yes, I see she has a disability but that does not preclude you from making sure she follows the norms of polite society, such as not touching people without their permission.

Her: You're a bitch.

Me: You're oblivious.

Her: Kiss my ass.

At that point I told the boys we had to go, and all but Atticus complied willingly. Charlie (almost 6), who doesn't miss a thing, said, "Mommy why was that girl's mommy letting her pick up Maxie?"

"Well," I replied, "there are some people who think for one reason or another they don't have to follow the rules the rest of us follow."

To which Charlie replied, pointing out the window "Look, Xander, a concrete truck!"

Back It Up

Atticus: Mommy, why are you crying?

Me: Well, Mommy is just not very smart right now.

Atticus: That's okay, Mommy, you're still pretty.


Why was I crying? Why am I not smart? Why is there no cute photo of my son on this post? Let me tell you.

We have three pcs. Two desktops (the Dell and the HP) and an old laptop. The Dell was our old main pc which we stripped and gave to the boys for The Dora Game, The Tractor Game and all kinds of important stuff. It crashed a few months ago, and we didn't try to hard to fix it. The HP, which is only nine months old, became our main pc. We migrated all the data from the Dell to the HP: pictures, movies, finances etc. Well, two days ago, the HP crashed. The boy at Firedog said "Bad hard drive, but don't worry, you're under warranty." I smiled and thanked him, and calmly and politely asked if they could recover our data. "Maybe," he said, "we'll let you know at the end of the day." I smiled politely again. Inside I was screaming "Are you fucking kidding me? The end of the day?!?! Do you people realize I have every picture of my children since they were born on that pc?" No, I never got around to backing it up.

Now, I blame perfectionism and attention deficit disorder. I have sat down many times to back up My Documents. Every time I'd get engrossed in the photos, thinking how cool it would be to burn a slide show to VCD. I even went as far as two weeks ago purchasing a program so I could burn to DVD. We could all happily sit around the TV, reminiscing and watching slideshows of the childhoods of our boys.

Well, that evening the nice boy at Firedog called and apologized they could not even get a pc to recognize the hard drive, and the data was "too deep." He asked if I wanted to go ahead and exchange the bad drive out for a new one. "No," I said, "I'll come pick it up." I was working under the same premise as those who froze Walt Disney. Someday we'll have the technology.

Immediately I called my brother, who is a Computer Genius. He recovered the data from my laptop when that hard drive went bad. Okay, now you're thinking "She really is stupid, this happened to her before and she still didn't back up her drive." Well, please refer to my previous statement in blaming perfectionism and ADD. Anyway, I called my brother, the Computer Genius. His poor girlfriend probably thought someone died when I called, sobbing. Referring to the guys at Firedog my brother said "Those guys are idiots, bring it to me, we'll see what we can do." In defense of the idiots at Firedog, the nice boy was clear to me that all was not lost, but that that they only did a primary software data recovery. There were people who would take the thing apart and extract the data to the tune of $1600.

Well, that was last night. No luck yet, according to my brother, but he'll work on it more tonight. In the meantime I need to decide whether $1600 is worth it to get those pictures back. What would you do?

And oh, by the way, this is a cautionary tale. Go back up your hard drive. Do it now. I'm going to back up this crappy old laptop... as soon as I cook dinner.

Fiesta!

According to Wikipedia: "Political correctness (often abbreviated to PC) is a term used to describe language or behavior which is intended, or said to be intended, to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to racial, cultural, or other identity groups."

In Charlie's Pre-K class, this week was "Multicultural Week," which you would think would uphold anyone's standards for political correctness. The highlight of the week, at least according to the kids, was today's "Fiesta." They made a piñata, made and wore red sombreros and had nachos and chips for snack.

A group of moms was congregated outside the door as they released the kids at the end of the day. One by one the children emerged, the boys with "pencil-thin mustaches" and the girls with "beauty marks" painted on their faces in black chalk. I gave it a moment, glanced around at the other moms, then locked eyes with my friend, Betsy, who I could tell was on the same page as me.

"Is something wrong here?" I whispered.

"It's not exactly politically correct, is it?" Betsy responded, laughing.

Nope.