January 21, 2008

DIY (and then do it again when it doesn’t turn out right)

Once upon a time, our dining room looked like this:

And then we got tired of the white walls, and we painted, and it looked like this:
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January 17, 2008

it’s for you

Charlie refuses to learn our phone number, or rather ANY of our numbers, because we are the generation that has an entire phone book of numbers (home, work, Mom’s cell, Dad’s cell, etc etc). When Henry was in pre-K, we had him memorize our home number, only to later realize that we almost never ANSWER that number, because we just assume that anyone who REALLY needs us will call our cell phones. So then we had to teach him our cell numbers, which was fine with him because he likes doing stuff like that (memorizing! and numbers! ooooh!) so that we could be certain that if he were ever lost and had to call us, he could.

Which assumes of course that I am EVER going to let him go anywhere alone, which I so am NOT. But whatever.

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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.