Awesome

Thomas is very tired after a long, busy week, and he's super content to lie on our bed and read a book today, which I love. 

I walked in - to MY bedroom - and said, "Isn't reading awesome?"

He slowly lowered his book and said, "Yes, it is. You know what else is awesome? When you can read in silence and no one is trying to make conversation with you."

In case there was ever any doubt, he is most certainly a small version of his father. 

Ho hum

I'm a little under the weather which could possibly result in my patience being a little thinner than normal as well. The boys were running around in the basement this afternoon and the volume was just too high. 

I called Thomas upstairs and asked him to sit down next to me while I quietly explained that I really needed to not hear his voice so clearly and reminded him that he's got some big birthday plans brewing - in his own mind anyway - and that if he wanted me to put any of those into action I needed him to lower his perpetually broken volume button and prove he could have a group of boys around and not be out of control. He nodded solemnly, indicating he understood, and disappeared. 

A second later I hear him YELL, "Oh, it was just the 'bring it down talk' again! No big deal!"

I'm so good at this parenting thing. 

Iron Chef Henderson

I'm cooking chicken enchiladas for dinner. After pronouncing that gross, he decided to prepare his own dinner. 

 I'll let you be the judge of whether a chopped medley of pepperonis and string cheese in a tortilla is less or more disgusting. 

P.S. Yes. He's wearing pajama pants while preparing dinner. It was a busy Friday and Saturday and lazy Sundays are pretty difficult to come by around here. What can I say?

The apple doesn't fall far

The adults in this house have been like ships passing in the night for the last two weeks. Damn jobs. No worries, though. It's like Mark is home as long as his mini-me is in the house. One worships at the computer and the other at Disney Channel, but otherwise there's a lot of similarity!

Science, for the win

Instead of making excuses (to myself? for myself?) about why it has been a month since I wrote something here, I'm going to just dive in with this little gem of a story...

Andrew had a futsal game in Kansas City yesterday in the late-afternoon (if I were making excuses about why I haven't been writing, futsal in Kansas City would appear on the list...) and we decided that while we were so close to the Plaza, we should go ahead and take the boys to dinner and to see the miles of Christmas lights there. 

After a little tension about whether it was possible for Andrew to change his clothes in a moving car and a little disagreement between boys and a mom about whether gray cargo pants actually count as "dress clothes," we maneuvered through the dense Saturday night crowds and enjoyed a great meal with my parents, making the effort of changing out of soccer clothes in the car worth it.

As is the norm these days, Thomas didn't think much of the food available to him on the menu, but he apparently doesn't mind not eating. Not eating affords him more time to talk. And tell stories. And ask questions. My poor lucky mother was the recipient of most of his conversation last night because we were seated around a large round table. He commanded her assistance with word puzzles during the appetizer and her help with cutting the food he mostly didn't eat during the entree. While waiting for dessert he re-payed her efforts by offering up a little science lesson. He has been learning about solids, liquids and gasses and about other physical properties of objects.

I was half-listening as he was chatting about the properties of different things on the table but tuned in fully just in time for him to point at a wine glass and say, "Grandma. Did you know this glass is transparent?"  She responded by telling him that was correct and then said, like the good educator she is, "What's the opposite of transparent?"

Without missing a beat Thomas said, "Oh, that would be opaque." Then my mom said, "If the wine glass is transparent, can you give me an example of something that's opaque?"

He paused a nano-second, looked around the table filled with all kinds of plates and food and then reached up and tapped my mom's cheek and said, "Yes. You're opaque, Grandma!"

We decided most people are, but I think that he'll eventually learn that some are decidedly more so than others!

No respect

Thomas and I were cruising down the street earlier this week and he was, as he’s apt to do when he’s not competing with his brother for air time, telling me a big story from the backseat. He seemed to be questioning whether I was listening so he asked me to repeat a piece of the tale, I think just to test me. Amazingly, I answered correctly. He was appropriately impressed and then he said, “Mom, are you the smartest person in Kansas?”

I was going to assure him I wasn’t, but I was also admittedly flattered and amused so I paused a second before responding.

In that split second of dead air, he chuckled and just as I was about to speak he said, “Never mind. OF COURSE NOT. I forgot about dad!”

On honesty

“Integrity is telling myself the truth. And honesty is telling the truth to other people.”

-Spencer Johnson

For the second summer running, we’ve purchased a subscription to a CSA through the boys’ preschool. I love everything about it. We’re supporting local farmers, we’re eating vegetables that I probably wouldn’t buy at the store like Napa Cabbage and beets and it’s a total steal when you break down the cost.

Each Thursday afternoon we pick up a bag of fresh produce when I get Thomas from camp. An area farmer brings the goods to the school, along with recipes and cooking suggestions, and we often even get to make some choices. This week we could choose between garlic or basil (basil) and kale or broccoli. Andrew was helping me choose and he knew he was going to have to eat some of everything and he knows he doesn’t like broccoli so kale it was.

Tonight I turned that huge bunch of kale into what seemed to be only a few kale chips. They were, if I do say so myself, delicious. Like, I could hardly get them to the table without eating them all good. I gave the boys each a chip and asked them to try it. Andrew ate his and announced that while he didn’t think they were as good as I did, they were “alright” and there was no gagging or excessive milk drinking accompanying the process.

Thomas took a little bite and then just sort of busied himself with eating pasta. When I asked him what he thought he said, “Well, they might have been good if you’re into eating leaves, which I’m not.”

That, according to the aforementioned Spencer Johnson, is integrity and honesty all rolled into one six-year-old boy.

Spring break by the numbers

I like to believe it’s not so much that I'm not a numbers person as it is that I am a word person. I rarely think numerically and, as the length of my average blog post will illustrate, I definitely think in narrative. This week, though, I’ve got numbers on the brain. It might be because our beloved Jayhawks played their hearts out in the Final Four, or the fact that Thomas turned six last week or, maybe, that Andrew played four soccer games last weekend. The reason isn’t yours to question but rather to rejoice. I’m going to recap our Spring Break trip to visit Butch, RoRo, Maria, Eric and the collective cousins in California by the numbers. Here goes:

37 – the number of seconds it took for all the kids to disappear into the house to play together once we arrived in Claremont this trip.

45 – the number of minutes after they disappeared before we saw them again.

1 – the number of days each of our boys spent, individually, with Aunt Maria in her first grade classroom. I worried they might not think it was fun to go to school during spring break. I worried for not. They loved it.

13 – the number of times Thomas marveled at the layout of California schools, which have no interior hallways and instead open to an outdoor courtyard.

18 – the number of miles we drove from Butch and RoRo’s house to reach the Mt. Baldy Ski Area with the boys. We threw snowballs since we haven’t done that at home this winter. (Global warming is real, people.)

 

72 – the number of times Thomas told us he didn’t like the curvy mountain road and asked to go back to Butch and RoRo’s house on said trip up the mountain. We assured him he would love it at the top. He did not love it at the top. You win some, you lose some.

17 – the number of notes I found in the boys’ bedroom during the week with floor plans of the house drawn on one side and narrative on the other that said, “Susan and Maria talking again. RoRo laughing. Butch watching television. Mark on computer. Eric texting.” The Spy Game evolved this trip into hours of entertainment.  The kids sneak around the house “spying” on - and “whispering” about - the adults and they take notes on what they find. The adults go about their business pretending as if we can’t see the kids, per their request. The Spy Game is a win-win.

58 – the number of times my kids asked Butch when he would get out the Model A so they could go for a drive.

58 – the miles per hour all the kids moved, as they raced toward the Model A, when Butch surprised us at the playground offering rides on a beautiful afternoon.

5 – the number of kids Maria had sleeping in her house on the Tuesday night of our visit. “Hooray for sleepovers,” says the woman who went home and slept in a big quiet house with three other adults.

 

4:45 a.m. – the time that Zac and Andrew woke Maria up on the morning after the sleepover. No need to worry; they were just going to feed the dog and play Mario Kart. “Hilarious. They’re so helpful,” says the woman who was sound asleep in a big quiet house with three other adults at 4:45 a.m.

34 – the length of the largest T. Rex at the LA Natural History Museum, which we visited the next day. His name is Thomas, which we obviously found charming. RoRo purchased t-shirts for all the kids and I was that mom, asking museum staff to please check the back room, because we really needed the Thomas the T. Rex shirt in the right size!!!

4,000 – the number of Dire Wolves it is estimated have been pulled from the tar at the La Brea Tar Pits. We visited there after the Natural History Museum and it was fascinating for most of us.

1 – the number of people in our party who weren’t so impressed by the Tar Pits. I won’t name names, but someone whose name rhymes with “hair” was most disappointed to find out that all the animals available for viewing at the Tar Pits were dead. I believe the quote was, “Where are all the alive animals?” and when the answer was, “There aren’t any. They died in the tar,” the response was, “This place is stupid.”

4 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who ended up with tar on some part of their body as we wandered the grounds. That place is nuts; the tar is still bubbling in pits and is literally seeping from the ground mere feet from the sidewalk.

1 – the number of Henderson/Tucker children who were still awake when we arrived home that evening. Andrew. Of course. He had only been up since 4:45 a.m.

3 – the number of hours of adult conversation, great food and beer we enjoyed with the Tuckers that evening while our collective kids were in the care of babysitters and RoRo. As always, the gift of being related to people you like and who make you laugh is not lost on me.

45- the number of miles we drove the next day to have a delicious lunch in Long Beach and enjoy a Harbor Cruise. We could see snowy Mt. Baldy from the boat. Crazy.

2 – the number of rides we let the kids enjoy at the Santa Monica Pier, where we journeyed after Long Beach. Watching Luke, Claire and Thomas ride the bumper cars was worth the price of admission. Afterwards they got to touch the very cold Pacific Ocean and we took the scenic route along the beach back to the car.

2.5 – the number of hours it took us to make the return journey to Butch and RoRo’s that night. It’s a 50-mile drive; I’ll let you do that math. We only had one child end up car sick and it only took 30 chicken nuggets and five Sprites to keep them quiet enough to make it possible for Maria to navigate the route.

3 – the number of miles that Mark told me we would be hiking on Friday morning in the beautiful foothills of the Claremont Wilderness Park.

5 – the number of miles we actually hiked on our last morning in the foothills. It was so worth it and something I want to do again with the boys, next time with some water.  

2 – the number of minutes we saw of the KU vs. NC State basketball when we arrived home after an easy day of travel. Rock Chalk!

128 – the number of times the boys have asked if we can return to California this summer for more family time, in the 10 days we’ve been home.

We had a great trip and can’t thank Butch, RoRo and the Tuckers enough for all the good food, accommodations and company. We’re very, very lucky indeed!

 

p.s. I had vowed when we left for CA that I would not write another blog post before I recapped our late-December journey to Florida to see Mickey and his friends. That trip, it turns out, is overwhelming to blog. Stay tuned, though!

Starting where I am

We’re 13 days into 2012 and for 10 of those I have been meaning to update the ol’ blog site with a well-crafted post. I need (want) to write about our holiday celebrations that were replete with family and fun. I need to document our amazing post-Christmas vacation to the happiest place on earth with dozens of photos that should really be narrated before I forget the details (and the hilarity) that can surround a traveling party of 10. We truly had so much fun.



However, as my wise mother-in-law recently reminded me, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”  I also recently read that the best way to move forward is to just start where you are. How profound. So, here we are.

Since we returned from Florida we’ve been embroiled in Life. We re-acclimated to school and work, which was easier for the kids than me, and we’ve also been running an infirmary.Our sweet Madeline dog had a spleenectomy last week to get things rolling and since she came home we’ve been busy keeping her off the stairs while she heals. That’s a full-time job because her interest in said stairs has quadrupled since they’ve been taboo. We heard from the veterinarian today that the tumors they removed defied the laws of probability and were benign. We feel good about electing to have the surgery and when the kids want to know why their college accounts aren’t fully-funded we’ll remind them about the extra years we bought with the best last dog we've ever owned. (I jest, I jest. We love her and are very pleased that she seems to feel better than she has in months.)

Last Saturday at 9 p.m., when the kids should have been in bed as I was wrote a brilliant trip recap, I was instead watching Chopped and the boys were roughhousing in the basement. They were fighting over a football and were in a standoff on opposite sides of a chair. At the exact moment I opened my mouth to intervene, Thomas surprised his brother by making a move toward him over the chair instead of around it. Andrew, of lightning quick reflexes, flew out from around the chair and had almost escaped his brother’s grasp when he thwacked his foot on a corner of the wall.  Hard.  We then got to have one of those parenting moments where we make a decision without speaking out loud to one another. That decision was, “sure looks gotched but we’re not taking a kid to the ER for a gotched toe on a Saturday night.”  That’s when we sent him to bed with some ice and a dose of Motrin.

By Sunday morning it looked worse so I consulted facebook. Facebook told me that there’s no reason to take a kid to a doctor for a broken toe because “they” “never” do anything for a broken toe. When he spent the entire day on the couch with it elevated we knew something might actually be wrong, however, and decided that we couldn’t even bear to buddy tape them because it was obviously out of line and we suspected that maybe it was just jammed but didn’t want to make it worse.

So, on Monday morning, right after he delivered me home from having four wisdom teeth extracted, Mark took him to the doctor. She ordered an x-ray and Mark took him back to school.  Andrew's desk chair had barely had time to get warm when the doctor's nurse called our home. I was in no shape to talk because of the gauze filling my mouth, the ice packs on my face and the general fuzziness that results from anesthesia so I hazily told my mom to talk with her. When I heard, “Oh, two toes? A boot? For how long? When do we do this?” I just reached for another pain pill.

My dad went to have Andrew called out of class and, as he drove him to the doctor’s office, broke the news that he’ll be wearing a little walking boot on his foot for the next four weeks.  FOUR WEEKS. He’s been a great trouper. It’s a big shoe on a little leg.  The lesson here is that if you’re going to break toes, don’t break them where they meet your foot. Break them near the tips where there is indeed nothing to be done for you.



Poor Thomas actually lost a tooth at school that day and there was so much commotion with my throbbing face and Andrew’s new fashion accessory that he forgot to tell us until dinnertime. Needless to say, my parents and Mark earned stars for their crowns this week for dealing with the rest of us.



The bad news is that Mark has now developed a cold that isn't bad enough to keep him away from the gym or work, but it is a mancold, which is the worst variety, so he's as bad off as the rest of us. The good news is that we’re not actually all that bad off, we’ve got some good stories from the week and 2012 is off to a rollicking start!

A little quiz

When I look at this image, I see a map of the state of West Virginia.  You?


Not Thomas. After dinner tonight he was quizzing me on where in South Carolina his cousins will be living when, mid-sentence, he changed course. 

“Mom, wouldn’t it be cool to live in West Virginia, where the whole state is a ‘talking bubble’?”

Because I was clearly confused, he explained again; this time with hand motions.

“Mom, you know. The shape of West Virginia is like one of those bubbles that people talk into in books.”

Right. Now that he’s shown me West Virginia through his eyes, I see it too. Wonder what else he could show me that I’ve never thought to see?

Dear Santa–Vol. 1

Dear Santa,

The leaves are fully off the trees and the crisp feel of winter is in the air. As we prepare for your annual visit it has come to my attention that we have omitted an important request from our collective letters. As the trees shed their coats for the year we have discovered that what we thought were relatively common Bradford Pear trees in our yard are actually trees of the Sportingus Goodus variety. In the spring they’re flush with gorgeous white blooms and in the summer they offer dense, deep green foliage that creates a lovely atmosphere in our yard. It’s not until fall, however, that they reveal their true beauty.

As you can see the Sportingus Goodus species grows quite tall and its branches point straight up, with little horizontal reach. That leads us to our request.  It appears that the trees have fruit to offer that we cannot reach with any ladder or tool that we currently own. I’m wondering if it would be possible for you to include a low-altitude fly over on your way out of town to see if you can perhaps free the trees of the collected fruit.

This is but a sampling of nature’s bounty in these unique trees. I can, from my kitchen window, see additional treasures bringing the potential harvest total to two wickets, one soccer ball, one small blue football and one lacrosse net.  Should you find yourself too busy to actually help free these items, please drop off a very tall ladder. 

Best Regards,

Susan

What he said

We go from best friends to worst enemies and back to buddies again around  here with alarming frequency. (I’m talking about the boys, not me and Mark, for any of you wondering.) 

The general pattern starts with Thomas asking Andrew to play something with him. Andrew, after he makes Thomas beg a bit, agrees. They play well together for some period of time before Andrew decides that he needs to do something to exert his will over Thomas, just to make sure that everyone is clear on Andrew’s self-designated roles. The first time or two that Andrew does this Thomas might just go along with it but eventually Thomas remembers he has a spine and offers up a little resistance. From here things can go one of several ways, but the endgame is always the same; Thomas ends up sort of taking it and Andrew is still three years older and three years savvier.

This little scenario played out here a few days ago and just as  I was ready to jump in and defend my baby, my baby took care of it himself. He jumped up off the couch, approached Andrew who was sitting down and yelled, in his toughest tough guy voice, “ANDREW, DO YOU WANT A CHUNK OF ME? I DO NOT THINK YOU WANT A CHUNK OF ME!”

With that, he exited stage left and left Andrew speechless. 

Bravo, Thomas. Bravo.

Thoughts on thanks

I will be the first to admit that I frequently occasionally see the glass as half-empty when, really, I’m so lucky and the notion that the glass is half-full is actually a non-negotiable fact. And yet, my vision is sometimes a bit clouded. 

Yesterday it was clouded by having to go have a blood letting health assessment over my lunch hour under the guise of it being for my own good, but it really being so that our insurer can determine how much to raise our rates. It became further clouded when I left that appointment and discovered a low tire. It was the same tire that had just received an emergency fill-up four days prior along I-70 while I was on my way to a meeting. A detour to have my tire patched was not on my Monday agenda and that proverbial glass was feeling at least half-empty.  I spent that hour of my day engaging in some positive self-talk and left the repair shop feeling better than when I arrived. They repaired my tire at no charge and I walked to a nearby Walmart and knocked out some stocking stuffers. The glass was back to at least quarter-full. Then, as if on cue, my phone rang and I was made aware that Thomas was suffering from what appeared to be a classic migraine and had barfed in the principal’s office and could I please come get him stat and they thought a change of clothes were in order.

Empty.  Or at least decidedly low.

And then a funny thing happened. I had no choice but to focus on cleaning up my sick child; to try and make him comfortable and administer sips of Gatorade and watch him sleep on my bathroom floor for the next five hours. I felt simultaneously useful and worried about him and and fortunate for our relative health. Today he woke up feeling much better but kids who have migrained all over the floor at school aren’t welcome back on school property the next day so we spent today at home. What a treat. 

Half-full or at maybe even three-quarters.

We watched, at his request, a replay of the Stanford vs. Oregon football game and we rested on his Buzz Lightyear sleeping bag. We chatted about Santa and how large his toy sack might really be and pondered how it stretches. By mid-afternoon he was raring to go and asked if I knew of any Thanksgiving crafts.  BE STILL MY HEART. After a quick consult with Google, he was soon creating masterpieces with cotton balls, stickers, feathers and googly eyes and, with me cutting and him helping with glue, we had made this banner. 



Thomas decided he’s thankful for Heysnickle, his little blue bear. I am thankful for the boy that loves that blue bear and for his brother and his dad and the rest of our clan. Strangely, I also find myself thankful for an unraveled day that provided an opportunity look at the glass from a different angle - one from which it looks like it's overflowing.

Boo!

Another Halloween is in the books. We had a skeleton and Toad in the house this year and thanks to Grandma, Toad’s hat was a mega hit with the second grade crowd. As tends to be the way with Halloween, we stretched the festivities out over a couple of days by carving pumpkins, attending a Halloween carnival at the boys’ preschool, enjoying parties at their elementary school and trick-or-treating with friends tonight. 

Andrew hit the ‘hood tonight with friends from school and a few of their parents. He was delivered home with a bulging bag of candy, which he had already ensured was nut free by making strategic trades with a buddy. I thought that was forward thinking. What might NOT have been forward thinking was the fact that I found all of these empty wrappers in his bag. These were just the ones he didn’t think to dispose of before I found them. I shudder to think what else he ate in addition.

Happy Halloween!

Isn't it ironic

You know how you have those days where you just feel "off" or like things aren't clicking, but you're not entirely sure why that is? Thomas had one of those evenings.

After school it was a meltdown over his brother not wanting to play what he wanted to play and at dinner, the meltdown was over yogurt; after showers it was over my nerve to ask him to please follow directions.

Except? It was probably actually all about being physically tired, or hungry, or just mentally exhausted from having what was, ironically, a very good day at school.  And? Truth be told, I'm probably having one of those weeks as well. It's probably not a coincidence that my mood would rub off on him. 

At bedtime things were a little rocky around here and I looked him square in the eye and said, "Thomas, I need you to talk in a normal voice to me and get your act together." He paused for a second and said, quite clearly, "Mom, that's the problem.  I'm trying to get an act, but I just can't find one and it's just not working."

Ugh.

Note to self: Get your own act together before you ask these sweet boys to do the same.

Miscellany

Andrew received a book for his birthday called "Children's Miscellany." He hasn't yet written a thank you note for that gift because I keep forgetting. In my defense, he didn't get the book until three weeks after his birthday, which means that rather than seven weeks late, it's only four...

While the gifter hasn't been appropriately thanked, I love the title and have decided to begin working that word, miscellany, into conversation.

+++++++++

Andrew is feeling much better. His teacher told me this afternoon that he thought Andrew seemed much more energetic and himself today than even yesterday. THAT was what I have been waiting to hear. Every adult who has encountered me in the last week is probably WAY sick of hearing how concerned I am about him, but I've felt strongly that he just hasn't been himself.

A few hours later I know that "more energetic" means loud and even a little bit annoyingly himself, but we'll take it.

++++++++

Now that he's feeling better I think I'm allowed to tell a story of our drive to the hospital last week. Andrew was so upset and confused and also nauseous that I rode in the backseat with him holding a garbage bag. We were 2/3 of the way to the ER when he began moaning and saying he didn't feel well and it just suddenly really felt like it would be good if were there already.

Mark pulled the car through a left hand turn on a busy street and then ducked his head down and announced that he too wasn't feeling well... and was going to blackout. 

That's when I began yelling at him to PULLOVERRIGHTTHISINSTANT, because I was doing the math and I felt like if we could just keep driving we would get there faster than if he wrecked the car and we ended up waiting on an ambulance. We did a little Chinese firedrill right in the middle of a street so I could finish up the drive.

Someday we'll tell Andrew about the time he knocked himself silly and his dad was so worried about him that he was having sympathy nausea and dizziness.  That's love.

+++++++++

In the last week Andrew has received books, legos, balloons, candy, cupcakes and cards from his buddies as get well wishes. The most priceless one I've saved.

I told this friend's mom that Andrew really appreciated the visit from his classmate and I really appreciated the card because it simply made my day last Thursday!

+++++++++

Speaking of all those get well gifts. We haven't written any thank you notes for those either. Do we need to? I'm not sure. Probably? Thoughts? Opinions?

+++++++++

Since Andrew's been a little out of commission, Thomas has been a little bored. He's accustomed to his brother providing most of his entertainment, much of his direction and nearly all of his thoughts. I have taken him out to ride his bike a couple of times just to get him out of the house and engaged in an activity. Lately, we've been riding to a church up the street because they have a huge, empty parking lot that gives the boys a place to cruise more freely than the sidewalk or our driveway.

Last night he asked me when we could go to Honey Mustard again. I didn't understand the question so I asked him to repeat it. He did. "When can we go to Honey Mustard again?" I couldn't figure out whether he was asking a serious question or just being silly then he said, "You know, to ride our bikes. When can we take our bikes to that Honey Mustard place again?"

It's the church. It's called The Mustard Seed. 

Perspective

We live in a quiet little town with our two children, one dog and 1.75 jobs. We lead a fairly simple life. With that said, I’m not sure why I can’t find time to document our existence here. We’re no busier than the average family. I think I just manage my time poorly because I somehow feel like I meet myself coming and going. Someday I’ll get better at this. In the meantime, I’ve made this my screensaver at work. It reminds me that at the end of each day my kids look peaceful and relatively happy.

This was taken on our summer vacation to Dallas. The boys shared a bed and, quite frankly, it didn’t go that well. At some point during each night we were in our hotel room I was awakened by them YELLING at one another about who had more blankets and who was hogging mattress space. Yet, early one morning, mere hours after a 3 a.m. tussle that could have woken the neighbors, we found this.

It makes me happy.

Our own little Webster

It's hot here. I understand, according to Al Roker and that crazy Cantore fellow, that it's pretty much hot everywhere and I'm really not complaining. I'll take really hot over really cold any day. You know it's been really hot for a really long time, though, when a five-year-old can accurately inform you about how many days it's been since his preschool class has been allowed to play outside in the afternoon.

Thomas' teacher, the fabulous Miss Lori, has made a game of checking the weather with her students. They recite the phone number to the local Time & Temp phone line out loud as she dials and they all listen very quietly for the magic number. In the winter, it's 32. In the summer, it's 95.  Except for now.  Now it's so hot that they have to wait for the verdict on the "feels like" temperature. 

While discussing weather-appropriate attire for an adventure we're having tomorrow, Thomas reminded me that if it's 99 degrees, it might feel more like 105 degrees.  Then he told me, in his Thomas way with his eyes open wide and his head cocked slightly to one side and leaned back just a bit, that "the real weather word for that is the HEATDEX." 

And that, my friends, is my new favorite made up word.

Teamwork

I see it's been two+ weeks since I've visited my little corner of the internet. We've had too much soccer, baseball, end of school, warm weather, 20th! high school reunion and travel on the docket. I have good intentions to document some of that eventually so I'm skipping to yesterday. I love that I can do that since this is my website.

We have owned the House of Hondo for 10 years tomorrow and during those 10 years, the landscaping that was practically newborn when we took possession has matured into full-blown angry teenager. We've got one tree scraping the porch and shading the sidewalk to the point that there are no longer any annuals on the market that appreciate the level of shade it delivers.  We've got another tree threatening to take over our driveway and one in the backyard attempting to become one with the boys' playset. I decided yesterday was the day to reclaim our yard, and a trashcan and five huge yard bags later, we've bought ourselves another six months before we have to call in a professional. And, my begonias might have a prayer of blooming.

I was so in the groove after attacking all these trees (albeit only as far up as someone who is 5' 6" can reach from the top of a stepladder - it looks as polished as you might imagine) that I decided it was time for the scrubby stuff that had been dying by our front walk to go too.  I pruned it all back as far as I could then sweetly batted my eyelashes at my husband and asked him if we couldn't use some teamwork to just quick-like dig those stumps out of the ground.

"I'm sure their roots aren't all that deep."

"I know you just mowed but this will only take a few minutes."

He totally fell for it.  Next thing you know we had a family shovel fest going down.  A short hour later we had removed two past-their-prime bushes and are ready for a fresh start. I might have been a bit off on how much effort it would take but we definitely had the teamwork part covered.  These three boys shoveled their arms off.

I included this last shot to document that I was indeed chatting with a neighbor while the boys finished the job. I did my part by dragging it all out to the curb tonight. If the trashmen take it all tomorrow morning then this job has been a success. 

I love my team!!!

Who's laughing now?

We at House of Hondo are so excited by warmer weather and longer days. The boys rush to get dressed so they can play outside before school and they rush home to jump in the trampoline after school. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and things are grand. 

Or are they?

We've reached a phase in our house where the boys "sleep in." While the definition of "sleep in" is relative, we've become accustomed to 7:15 or 7:30 for Thomas and even 7:45 for Andrew. That leisurely hour feels purely luxurious after the early years of Thomas' life where he was regularly up and at 'em by 6 a.m. He's the reason we instituted the Do Not Come Out Of Your Room Until The Clock Starts With A Seven rule.

It turns out the only drawbacks of longer days and more sun are longer days and more sun. Hello, 6 a.m.! 

***I do not like 6 a.m.***

After a few consecutive mornings of early wakeups, and the resulting grumpy evenings,  I have taken matters into my own hands. Genius or desperation?  You be the judge:

That's right. I taped their bedroom curtains to the walls last night. They already have blackout lining but that pesky gap between the curtain and the wall seemed to be giving us fits.  I've taken care of that issue in a super klassy manuever involving a roll of masking tape. Mark was sure they would notice AND that it wouldn't work. It turns out to be very fortuitous that theirs are the only two rooms in this house that I haven't painted so their contractor white walls match that klassy tape pretty well and they were none the wiser.

Everyone stayed in their own beds until 7:20 a.m.  I'm thinking that this round goes to Mom.