groundspeed

Don't Call Him Boris Karloff

My dad (Poppy) lives in the not-so-happening metropolis of Lehigh Acres. But we heard that a nearby community theater in Labelle, FL (even smaller!) was featuring a certain Dad/Poppy as Jonathan Brewster in the play Arsenic and Old Lace so we had to go over for a night.

Kaden accompanied me as my date while Kevin stayed at Poppy's with Blue and Toby. Poor guy couldn't even watch football (only TV at Poppy's is where Toby was sleeping) so he just got updates on his phone.

But before the play we all hit Maria's, a surprisingly good Italian place in Lehigh Acres, for an early dinner.

The theater goers.

Because my dad was playing an ornery murderer with Frankenstein stage makeup he kept stressing to Kaden that it was just a play, Poppy was only acting... Of course the minute my dad got onstage Kaden thought it was the funniest thing ever.

At curtain call. Poppy/Jonathan is in black in the middle.

If you're a risk taker and you run into my dad anytime soon, tell him he looks like Boris Karloff. See what happens.

Quiver Fingers

Someone's ready for the ball.

(We're two games into Kaden's first time playing in Upward Basketball.)

So! Many! Books!

Toby doesn't try to go into the office if the door is closed but if left open...

In the time it took me to look up something on my computer which was charging in the office, this is the pile he perused and then tossed to the floor.

His tastes are all over the place...

But the boy loves him some books.

Not His Best Week

My mom gave the kids a good report when we returned home last Sunday evening.

But Kevin and I could quickly tell they had taken advantage of their days with Oma.

Clothes all over their room. Red sharpie marks in the guest bath. Art supply scraps... everywhere.

But it wasn't until Monday morning when we loaded into the car for school drop offs and I saw how trashed the backseat of my car was that I'd had enough.  I announced that clearly I had failed to teach them how to take care of things. I was sorry for my failing. This week I would make up for it and we would be practicing chores... indefinitely. Kaden now has the added task of making his bed in the morning. Blue has helped me with baseboard cleaning and utensil putting away when I've emptied the dishwasher. Lots of emptying of trash cans. Wiping down of the table and place mats and cleaning the play area. Yippee!

Oh and the other awesome thing about my announcement was that we would use this chore-practice time during regularly scheduled TV time. Once I was convinced that they understood how to put things away again and pick up after themselves in our house and car, then TV could come back.

Kaden got TV back on Wednesday. Blue... not yet. 

And not for lack of cleaning.  But TV is a privilege and privileges go/stay away when boys don't behave. 

Blue is not behaving.

Yes, this kid. Not behaving.

Kaden got hit at school this week. Not a fight. Seemingly an isolated event, maybe a boy was goofing off and made a mistake, maybe he felt like being a jerk and Kaden had the misfortune of being next to him. The teacher didn't see it. Details were vague. We aren't sounding any alarms with the school over it. In our conversation about whether of not we were going to do anything Kevin said, "We have one boy who hits and one boy who gets hit."

Last week Blue punched a kid in the stomach. Blue said he did it because the kid was talking in line. Um, who made you bad cop? I made Blue draw an apology picture to the kid and a note. Blue's never written anything but his name but he knows how to write his letters so he told me what he wanted to say and letter by letter I spelled and he wrote. We also had many a conversation about being a good friend and losing friends when we aren't nice to them.

So this week Blue spit on some kids and took a kids dollar and shoved it in a drain (all playground incidents) so it was irretrievable.

Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not getting my message across.

Blue had to take a dollar from his own wallet to pay the kid back. And as for the spitting? Well, TV ain't back. And it became a ZERO privileges day. (When he simply got to shadow Mommy all day. These suck for both of us.) He's also been warned that karate and computers, after school activities I pay extra for, will go away in February if he doesn't get it together. (Which wouldn't be the end of the world. I could take that extra money and go get a massage.)

We are raising a punk.

The other day he took Kaden's homework off the desk, clipped it to a pants hanger, and hung it in the closet.

?!?!?!

A very annoying 15 minutes were spent looking for this lost and unfinished homework. I had even asked Blue if he'd seen Kaden's homework paper and he lied and said no. (It is possible he didn't realize what paper he was hanging up but he is smart enough to know that if Kaden and I were frantically scouring the bedroom for a sheet of paper it was very likely the paper he had moved.) When I found the homework and quickly realized how it got there. Blue got sent to bed. At 6:30.

So done.

Oh and he's been playing in the bathroom at school with the soap and water, making messes. When his teacher told me this story in front of Blue she sounded incredulous that a 5-year-old needed supervision in the bathroom. I was thinking, ha! At our house he's not allowed to brush his teeth on his own or wipe his own butt (Things Kaden did by age 3.) because of the messes we know he'll make. 

But all of this still falls within the realm of Blue being Blue. Sorta. He's kicked it up a notch. And spitting was one of his go-to behaviors last year when he was in ultra-defiance mode. Also, the fact that he really seems overrun by his impulsiveness and can't reign it in long enough to earn back privileges that I know he wants is worrisome. 

The first pee incident occurred last January mid month. That we have escalating "behaviors" at this particular time of year has not escaped my attention.

If I have three trains on the train track and you have two, how many trains are on the train track?

I wanted a picture of Blue because I knew I'd be writing this post so I lured him to the table where Toby and I were still eating breakfast by telling him we'd do math. Blue is very jealous of the math worksheets Kaden comes home with every day.  

I can entice the kid with the promise of math.

He's a sweet punk.

And we pray EVERY DAY that we can mold the sweet and push down the punk.

And you should pray with us too, because while he does make for funny blog posts, if we don't succeed it will eventually be YOUR tax dollars providing for his public legal services and jail time. 

Just sayin'

Fragile X Friday Links

Social opportunities for families that have children with disabilities.

Signal to Noise - how close are we to an FX cure?

But that's not many links so two Toby things from just this morning:

1. He got his own shirt this morning and was trying to put it on.  This is remarkable for a few reasons.
* He was wearing shorts and no top at the time. I had just taken off his pajama top which we leave on through breakfast and straight from the table he ran off on his own and fetched a t-shirt out of his drawer. Normally instead of trying to get dressed, he tries to get further undressed. :-)
*The t-shirt he chose matched. :-) He had on navy blue shorts and the shirt he picked has a small navy stripe in the pattern.

2. This morning Kevin took Blue and Kaden to school and so Toby, Gus and I went on a short walk before Ms. Amber, his play therapist was scheduled to arrive. At one point a flock of about two dozen birds swooped ahead of us on the street and Toby said, "Woah! Fly Away!" Two word phrases (beyond "Bye" and a name or "Hi" and a name) are celebrated around here.

Annual Album

Our 2011 album arrived yesterday!  

I've been doing albums since... I don't remember. I've been doing annual albums since about 2001. (I think that one may have started in 2000 and spanned 18 months or so.) In 2008 I switched from traditional scrapbooking to digital albums. My old habit was to spread my scrapbooking stuff out for days at a time, pack it away for a few months, pull it all and get caught up, etc.  With kids, there is no longer an opportunity to spread my scrapbooking stuff out for days at a time.

I still have my old supplies because it's nice for cards, invites, and gift tags. Plus each boy has a "Through the Years" album for their school pictures, one spread at each birthday and other big milestones (first lost tooth, first organized sport...). So I do still lug out the acid free paper and big 'ol cutter and punches etc. etc. from time to time. 

The past four years of albums.

I am sure there are PLENTY of things my kids will hold against me in the years to come, but lack of organized photos WILL NOT BE ONE OF THEM.

In The Box

On Wednesday mornings when the doorbell rings I never know what's going to be in our CSA delivery. It's always a fun surprise.

Like today...

I have no idea what this is, but imma gonna cook it. (But if you do know what it is, and could give me some hints as to how to cook it, that would be appreciated too.)

But these, I'm not going to cook.

What a nice bonus to arrive with our usual produce.

KWLS

As in the Key West Literary Seminar. As in what/where this mamma spent all her Christmas/birthday money. (The folks are generous - spent in one place, it can do something.)

I was going no matter what. Kevin was invited if he could take the days off work. Stay home and watch kids vs an already-paid-for Key West trip? He chose to come with. Mom got stuck with the kids.

We left on my birthday! We checked in, drove to The Flaming Buoy for our dinner reservation, and then I was off to the opening seminar event, a conversation between Douglas Coupland and William Gibson who I'm told coined the term "cyberspace."

All events were held at the San Carlos:

And the stage, although not meant to look like the set of Hugo, did...

It's Steampunk...  
(And no, I had no idea what that was before this weekend.) 

I bailed on a champagne reception and headed back to the B&B where Kevin awaited in the heated pool, under an almost-full moon, a bottle of our own champagne already open. No lie. That is how I ended my evening on the day I turned 34. How every birthday should pass...

And the day after every birthday should include a discussion with Joyce Carol Oates (so serious), China Mieville (so passionate), and Margaret Atwood looking highly amused and successfully prodding both of them, all under the skillfull moderation of James Gleik. This remained my favorite event of the seminar. By the end even Oates cracked a smile and began saying things like, "Don't bore the audience. If the audience is getting bored, gauge someone's eye out."

Afterwards, at the book signing Oates and Atwood each wrote "Happy Birthday" in the books I had for them to sign.

This is foremost a "Mommy Blog" and I may be totally boring you with all these writerly things. I don't want to resort to eye gauging, but a few more quick moments...

On Friday Kevin and I had lunch at Sarabeth's.

We didn't know it, but Sarabeth's was the place to be. Fantastic food and half the authors from the conference were there. I was shoulder to shoulder with Michael Cunningham (he wrote The Hours, made into a movie, Nicole Kidman won an Oscar...) and after we left I fell into step with Judy Blume (Superfudge! Are You there God, It's Me, Margaret.) on the sidewalk (THE Judy Blume, who wasn't a speaker but is on the board of directors) and we talked. A casual conversation with Judy Blume on a Key West sidewalk. Sounds like the kind of thing that should be preceded by, I had the funniest dream last night... But it really happened.

I loved walking down Duval every morning, early enough that it was just me and the street sweepers. Well, and the roosters.

Saturday night and Sunday morning we were amused by all the Ragnar runners in tutus. (Didn't know what the Ragnar Relay was until this weekend either.)

I loved climbing up the lighthouse at Saturday night's dinner.

I loved this dog at Mallory Square whose talent was to take dollars and put them in a bucket:

And this street performer who kept telling dirty jokes and then saying, "Don't worry! The kids don't get it!"

And getting up to watch the sun RISE on Sunday:

Then listening to Gary Steyngart (Super Sad Love Story) who spoke at 9:50am and China Mieville (Embassytown) who spoke at 10:20am complain about how early it was. Ha!

Kevin ate a lot of key lime pie.

I chose key lime ice cream and a key lime mango smoothie on the ride home.

Why is this here and not on my long abandoned author blog?

Because I wasn't there as an author. I was there as a mom who needed the beginning of her year to be about something other than her kids. I was there as a reader and a fan who wanted to listen to the authors of books she has read. (Stalking them at restaurants was an unintended but happy bonus.) I was there as an MFA who has sorely missed good literary discussion. At the very bottom of this list in small, doesn't-want-to-jinx-it print, I was there as a writer seeking motivation that could possibly, hopefully launch me into some sort of momentum for this upcoming year.

No promises. 

No matter what does or does not get written, so glad I went.

I expect there will be many blogs on this event, but here's one, much more comprehensive.

Star Wars Christmas

We chose to do a present theme for Christmas this year and the boys got a lot Stars Wars stuff.  Toys and movies - yes and yes. But it didn't stop there...

Toby's new kicks:

Blue's new outfit modeled by Kaden:

Kaden makes for a much-too-tall Yoda. Kinda freaks me out.

And then we went to Uncle Bradd's who has the uber cool Star Wars toys from 70's/80's and he unloaded his attic treasures upon them.

When we got home I had to reorganize the play area.

In other words, if you like Star Wars our house is now the place to be.

Packed Away

Kevin isn't working today so by midafternoon all our lights will be off the house (not the last ones on our street either thankyouverymuch) and the boxes of inside decorations will be out of the garage and back into the attic.

Even Toby was ready to do his part:

Hmmmm. Where does this lead?

And do you see how he's wearing jeans and a sweater. Gotta love that a week that started with a beach day turned to sweater weather!