January 16, 2008

I’m waiting for the bid for secession

I worry sometimes that Henry will get picked on at school. He’s pretty much a prime target, if my childhood memories serve me right; he’s smart and quirky, he wears those big thick glasses, and he buttons his polos all the way up and belts his pants right under his armpits.

My son is a nerd.

So the other day, when he casually mentioned that some kids in his class were saying mean things to him, I was ready. We talked about how last summer one of his friends was getting bullied at camp, and how sad it made him and how much he wanted the other kids to stop calling him names and being mean. And I told Henry that his friend practiced what to say when the other kids picked on him, how he practiced looking right at them and saying, in a completely calm voice, “Okay. So what?”

Henry liked that, and in the car on the way to school, he practiced. He used his peaceful voice and he told me that he would NOT yell or hit anyone because that might hurt THEIR feelings, and he wouldn’t want to do that.

Finally I said, “Buddy, can I ask what the other kids are saying to you?”

There was a long pause and then he said, “Diana said that I started the Civil War. But you know, I didn’t! And it really hurt my feelings.”

That wasn’t really what I was expecting. At all.

January 13, 2008

it’s only a suggestion, but he thinks its a good one

When Heather B came to visit me last summer, Henry was having a big Milano cookie phase (understandable, really). He was also FINALLY starting to read everything all the time, which included the suggested serving information for pretty much all the food we put on the table.

I typically go with a one (or two) cookies per customer limit at snack time, because the LAST thing my children need is more sugar, but of course Henry got hold of the bag and reported to me that “The suggested serving size for these cookies is THREE cookies.” Which made Heather laugh so hard she had to leave the room, I’m pretty sure.

On Friday morning, when I went to get him out of bed and he burrowed under the covers because maybe MAYBE if he hides THIS will be the morning that I can’t FIND him and he won’t have to get up — when I went and sat on the bed like I always do and patted him and asked what he wanted for breakfast so that he could have five more minutes in bed while I got things going, he said, from under the covers, “I would like some oatmeal.”

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

And then his little hand shot out from under the comforter with two fingers sticking up in a V, and he said, “I would like TWO ADULT SIZE SERVINGS, please.”

And that is exactly what I gave him. The end.

January 9, 2008

for Christmas, he got a new TV

Wade refuses to use our remote’s PREVIEW mode when he watches television, preferring instead to flip through EVERY SINGLE CHANNEL in our eleventy million channel cable package. Sometimes he does it just so he can say, “Look! This one is HD! THIS one is NOT! Can you see the difference?” and I say, “Yes, absolutely!” without ever looking up from the J. Crew Catalog Du Jour.

He also only recently figured out how to use the DVR; until about a week ago, he would watch a recorded program and RUN to the kitchen at the commercials to get a snack or a beer and RUN back before the show started again.  I finally had to remind him that IT’S ALL TAPED, SEE, SO YOU CAN SKIP THE ADS.  Sheesh.

So the other night we’re watching television, but NOT the bowl game because we KNEW Ohio State would lose and it was too heartbreaking, and also we are lazy. Wade was flipping, flipping, flipping, stopping at CHANNELS WE DO NOT GET, which have nothing on the screen except a notice that says YOU ARE NOT SUBSCRIBED TO THIS CHANNEL, so that he can narrate to me what we COULD be watching if we had these channels. “Ooooh Newsies! We could watch Newsies! Except we don’t get this channel.”

And then he gets up and leaves the room and goes off to read somewhere else, leaving the television tuned to a channel that WE’RE NOT SUBSCRIBED TO. While I am still sitting there.  The saddest part is that it probably took me five minutes to realize that he wasn’t coming back.

Tonight he said, “Let’s see what’s on TV,” and I had to resist the urge to beat him to death with the clicker.  Because he totally has it coming.

January 7, 2008

apparently, this is a house blog now

First things first: Wade came home on Friday and repeated, again, his plan to GET A LADDER and LEAN IT OVER HERE and PAINT THE WALL because HOW HARD CAN IT BE? And I said I ASKED THE INTERNET AND THEY SAID NO NO NO DO NOT DO IT.

And lo he was persuaded and we shall hire a painter and the heavens opened and the angels sang.

Thank you all for your encouragement and support of my position. I love you all.

So on Saturday, after TWO pee wee basketball games (remind me later to tell you all about THAT) we started painting the office. Pretty much the rest of the weekend, until like an HOUR ago, was a long blur of paint. Because for a tiny room, that office was a bitch to paint.

Why so hard, you ask? Well, because of this …

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January 4, 2008

if no one winds up in the hospital, I will consider it a success

I know that some of you are big DIY people; I am not. I’m more the type of person who has the interior decorator’s cell number on speed dial (shut up). But I need some DIY advice, because my home improvements have suddenly crossed into dangerous territory and I am a little afraid someone is going to wind up dead if we’re not careful.

The someone won’t be me, by the way. Hell no.

You know how we spent all last weekend painting? And the house looks SO GREAT now?

We’re not done. In fact, the painting we did LAST weekend — living room, dining room, breakfast bar, foyer — was the EASY part. This weekend, we need to deal with the stairwell.

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January 3, 2008

what have I been doing? oh, not much

When Wade and I were getting ready to sell our last house, we knocked ourselves out doing various home improvement and repair things. Okay, we hired contractors to do most of it, but we DID do a few things ourselves. Like paint the damn bathroom.

And then we punched ourselves in the head because after seven years of living in that house, it looked the very best in the two weeks before we sold it. And because things like painting are SO EASY and make such a HUGE DIFFERENCE.

When we bought this house, we swore a solemn oath that we would NOT shirk our homeownery responsibilities, and that we would paint! and decorate! and improve! and not wait until we were ready to sell to do it. But then we got all bogged down by paint colors and fabric samples and dining room chairs that cost more than private school tuition, and we kind of gave up.

Over the Christmas holidays, we got inspired, and we painted the downstairs. In THREE DAYS. Yeah, baby.

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