It’s been a busy weekend around here.

Friday night (well, starting at 5pm) we hosted a birthday/slumber party for Dragon (HAPPY #13!!!!). Four boys and one girl (Girl didn’t spend the night…though we’re glad she came– VERY BRAVE).

A night chock full of pizza, soft drinks, cake, ice cream and other various sugary snacks… Numerous Nerf gun wars, a scavenger hunt, Rockband, movies…etc. I’m pretty sure they were up until at least 3 or 4 am… based on the history on the web browser (the last site loaded at 2:58am)….

Then…  in the morning, we filled their bellies with pancakes, sausage, bacon and chocolate-drizzled glazed donuts.

And then there was another Nerf gun war.

And another…

And another…

And then there was some Wii action.

And then I left for work.

And then…one by one… they all went home.

And Jake took Dragon and Wildcat to spend the night with their grandparents in Knoxville.

And we had the night alone. Whew!

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Grandparents took the boys shopping…got some new toys, new clothes and some new shoes.

These are Wildcat’s new shoes….

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…. Wildcat’s new shoes…with MY feet in them.

Yep.

He’s wearing 5’s (which is a 7 in womens) — My toes are little cramped b/c I wear 8s… but DAMN!
THE SEVEN YEAR OLD IS WEARING SHOES BIG ENOUGH TO FIT MOST NORMAL WOMEN!!!

We JUST BOUGHT Wildcat brand new 2′s in July…….THIS PAST JULY!!!!

So… yeah, he’s been running around in shoes that are 3 sizes too small for him. (refer to “How to be a Bad Parent, vol 3″ … but you’ll have to wait…it’s still being written)

It also explains why the stitching on the toes was popping off.

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My toes come to the end of the laced section on Dragons new PAIR OF 10s !!

OMG!! 10s!!!

(That would be a 12 in womens…fyi)

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Ok- So.. I know I married a monster tall person..who comes from a family of tall people…and was probably SURE to pass those genes over to his children (cause I’ve been told K-genes always win….hmmph).

But his KIDS were A LOT SMALLER when they moved in here 2 years ago…. and watching it happen has been amazing.

And a lot has changed.

They have “little boys that are growing into some sort of really big monsters tall people” appetites.

They WERE picky eaters… and they WERE slow eaters… and we USED TO always have leftovers.

Heh. Not anymore.

Bring on the big feet!!

I love it!

Yesterday was my 34th birthday.

Last night, after we ate our yummy steak dinner, I was sitting at the dining room table…. all the boys were clearing the table and doing the dishes in the kitchen (I was told to stay in my chair).

I was reminiscing about the last few hours….. surprised by a bouquet of daisies, spontaneous little kisses and hugs, the new Wii Super Mario Bros. game, phone calls from family members and little nieces and nephews singing to me over the phone, grilling our dinner together on the back porch…what a great year it’s been…. I decided that I must be the luckiest girl alive. I love my life. I love my little family. This is the good stuff.

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And then there was a blast of laughter from the kitchen… Jake appears in the doorway…he’s face is red, his eyes are watering..and he’s doing the “I’m NOT gonna laugh at my child’s question” face….. he says, “Wildcat….go ask your mom that question..”

Oh Lord…

Here it comes…

Wildcat cautiously walks into the dining room…looks at me like he might be in trouble… turns his eyes toward to floor while he twiddles his fingers into a knot…

Wildcat: Ummm…. Why do you have Tampax? I thought you LOVED Dad.

Me: ** blink, blink ** uh….

Me: ** awkward pause **

Me: ** holding in laughter **

Wow.

Me: What does that mean?

Wildcat: Weelllll… I heard that Tampax means you’re angry at the person you love.

Me: ** speechless**

At this point, I’m not really sure where I’m supposed to go with this conversation.

I told Wildcat to hang on a sec… I walked into the kitchen.

Jake and Dragon are LITERALLY doubled over on the floor laughing so hard they are almost crying.

WHAT THE HELL AM I SUPPOSED TO SAY NOW? IS ANYONE REALLY READY FOR THIS PART OF PARENTING? I THOUGHT YOU PLANNED THIS TYPE OF CONVERSATION… WAS THIS PART OF THE DEAL??….

I decided to go for it.

I walk back into the dining room with a piece of paper and roughly sketch the female reproductive system… yep…. I went there.

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Wildcat knows a little about these things. When Jake had his surgery last year, we explained a little bit of it to him.

Consisting mostly of “To have a baby… the daddy has a piece and the mommy has a piece….and when those two pieces get together….you get a baby….and Dad’s surgery was so that he could help make a baby” — no major details.

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SOOO– While my brain was saying “WHAT ARE YOU DOING!!!!” — I tried to use what I knew that he knew…and educate him a little more.

On my birthday.

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After dinner.

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While my “support team” was hiding in the kitchen trying to unfold from the laughing cramps in their sides.

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I drew a body shape…and a uterus.. and some ovaries.

I asked him if he remembered about the little bitty mom-part and the little bitty dad-part that make a baby. He did.

I showed him where the EGG was made… how it traveled down when it was ready to look for the boy-part…. where it stays for awhile waiting for the boy-part… why the uterus is full of tissue and such (to start taking care of a growing baby)… AND THEN… when the little bitty boy-part doesn’t show up, the egg leaves… with all the other stuff too.

And that’s why I have Tampax.

He was satisfied with that explanation. He was a little concerned that there was blood involved… but Dad chimed in and explained that it was normal…and not like an injury. That made it a little better.

After we put the kids to bed, we were trying to figure out WHERE THE HELL he would pickup the idea that  “Tampax means you don’t love someone anymore” –

The only thing we could come up with was that SOMEWHERE, SOMEONE has answered a question or described something to do with….

P. M. S.

And Wildcat turned that into what he could understand… he stored it away. When he saw the Tampax box that came home with the groceries, it caused him great alarm.

Sweet boy.

So this is a lazy Sunday (not necessarily a Lazy Sunday) with coffee, cinnamon rolls, and sitting around in the den on various electronic devices.  Bell’s on her desktop, Wildcat’s on the couch with the DS, and I was on the couch with the lappy.

I was doing my Wikipedia excursions, and today my wanderings had brought me to the SubGenius entry to check on ol “Bob”, when I found a link to Magritte’s Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

Sure ain't, Rene

I don’t know how I’d gone 31 years without fully appreciating this work, but upon finding it this morning I realized that I had to get a big ass print of it and either hang it in my house or maybe in my office (did I mention I have an office now with 4 walls, a door, and no windows? no?).

I told Bell about it, cuz I wasn’t sure if she was familar with it, when Wildcat piped (heh) in, without looking up from the DS,  saying “Hey, I know that painting!  Its got a picture of a pipe and it has words underneath it saying that ‘this isn’t a pipe’.  Its weird.  Its a surrrrealeeeism painting.”

…

I stared at him for about 10 seconds with my jaw gaping open.

Once my brain had worked enough to get past the fact that my second grader is schooling me on surrealism, I asked him what else he knows about it.

He said “Its usually weird paintings that don’t make a lot of sense.  I think that Sarvoladore Dali is my favorite surrealistic painter.  He likes to paint melting clocks.”

Melty clocks for the win

So I pulled up some Dali (now, I’m not as much of a rube with ol Salvadore as I am with Rene) and he pointed out Persistence of Time, saying that he recognized that one from his art class.

“See the thing underneath the clock [on the right]?  Thats his face peeled off.”

…

Wow.

So we went through other surrealism paintings, and he recognized some, and I had an intelligent art conversation with my 7 year old.

Before he went back to the DS.

So, holy crap, Oak Ridge public schools for the win.  I emailed his art teacher something babbling about how “OMG MY CHILD IS KNOWING TEH ART TALK !!!!1111!!”

So, now I really, really want to get Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

This one ain’t bad either, and arguably more my speed…

Wildcat and I had the following discussion this morning:

• Wildcat – “Is there ever going to be a girl President?
• Me – “Maybe one day…she has to get elected by all the people”
• Wildcat – “Why don’t YOU be President?”
• Me – “I really don’t think I like politics enough to be President”
• Wildcat – “Me neither. And I don’t want to be President because they all die”
• Me – “Everybody dies, kiddo. Do you mean they get shot?”
• Wildcat – “Yeah. Except Barrack Obama is still alive”
• Me – “Yep. And George Bush and Bill Clinton and daddy George Bush… and MOST Presidents actually just die because they are old and get sick…not because they get shot.”
• Wildcat -  “YEAH. Except for George Washington. I think he died when he was old…or actually, he died because he fell off a cliff.”
• Me – ???
• Wildcat – “But I can’t remember for sure”

George Washington

I looked it up for him.

George Washington DEFINITELY did not die from falling off of a cliff.

Just in case you were wondering.

It’s that time of year…

Ugg. (well, part of me is like WOOO HOOOO!!!)

Luckily when Wildcat started his new school year, it was in the middle of July. There wasn’t all the crazy running around looking for specific types of scissors and glue sticks. We drove to the “local” Target (18 miles away), walked to the school supplies section, I called things off the list and Wildcat found them and put them in the cart. There was not one other soul in that section. It was awesome.

Yesterday, Dragon came home from his first day back to school with a big ol’ list of things (which we knew was coming) — aside from the $7, have-to-buy, “planner” that is specific to the school (which he already purchased), complete with a fancy holographic cover–

overdone planner

Seriously, holograms? on the front of this thing. How much did THAT cost? REally, people. Necessary cost? Hmmph.

Anyway–

My plan was to go shopping for these other items sometime on Tuesday morning, since I don’t work until later. And Monday night, we were just too plain exhausted from the day to go fight all the back-to-school shopping craziness.

Dragon comes out on the porch while we’re grilling some yummy hamburgers (oooo… <tangeant> and we had our first batch of tomatoes out of our garden- alas, they are a little bigger than golf balls, but they tasted oh-so-awesome), and tells us the he was told he needs the other stuff TOMORROW. I know that he needs it. He knows that I know he needs it. It just wasn’t gonna happen late Monday night. Sorry.

This morning, I decided to look in our “art supply” containers (put together in an attempt to “organize”…heh) — located in Wildcat’s closet (which means there is A LOT of “NOT art supply” things crammed in them, too).

• 3 – 70 pg spiral notebooks – CHECK (found 2)
• 1 – 3 ring binder with pockets, with dividers and paper – CHECK (woot!)
• pack of colored pencils – CHECK
• black or blue pens – CHECK
• pencils – CHECK (yes, some have Halloween pictures or paw prints on them- but they are still pencils)

Success.

Dragon went to school this morning with most of his required supplies (minus one spiral notebook) — the only complaint he had was about the covers on the 2 spiral notebooks — where his younger brother has, at some point, very artistically illustrated some scenes — one seems to be a mentally disturbed rabbit (reminded me of the Donnie Darko bunny) and the other looks like a Stegosaurus battling with some other kind of dinosaur (I’m sure Wildcat could fill me in on the correct name).

But you know what?

<start happily singing> We don’t have to go SCHOOL SUPPLY SHOPPING!!!! <stop happily singing>

Until next year.

Bedtime prayers:

Jake - “…… and dear God, please help us find someone who might want to buy our house…and help guide our decisions in what to do next…”

Wildcat - “….. and please God, please don’t let us ever sell our house…because I love this house and my room….”

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Conversation after prayers:

Jake to Wildcat - “You know if we get another house, you can still have an awesome room.”

Wildcat to Jake - “But I’d like to just keep this one…so I won’t have to wait for DAYS.”

Jake to Wildcat - “You remember the reason I had surgery? Why is it we might need a bigger house?”

Wildcat to Jake - “For a baby? We can just find a place here.”

Jake to Wildcat - “Where do you think the baby would sleep? The baby will need a room for naps and will wake up a lot at night.”

Wildcat gets a very thoughtful, concerned look on his face as he looks around his room (it’s the largest bedroom).

Wildcat to Jake - “We can put it in Dragon’s room.”

Wildcat comes out of the bathroom —

Wildcat – “I think I grew farkles”

me – “Farkles?”

Wildcat – “yeah..these dark holes on the side of my cheek”

me – “you mean FRECKLES?”

Wildcat – “ummm…..sure. I meant freckles”

: )

We enjoyed dinner last night with J & T… friends and live music on the patio at Cancun’s.
Very nice.

Wildcat asked the musicians…. well, what else? If they could play ‘Eye of the Tiger’ …

The fella nicely told him that he didn’t know all the words to that song…. Wildcat’s response?

“Welll….I do”

Today, the boys and I went to Knoxville (Jake had to work) and had a good day out. Ran to Earthfare and bought some yummy beer (started liking some Belgian beers while we were in Holland). Took the boys to Gamestop and picked up a new Wii game and DS game. Then, we hit  ol’ Hobby Lobby and bought some goodies. Wildcat got some ocean fish stickers for his bedroom. Dragon got some model paint to refurbish some of his toys. We got Dad a couple of frames, so he can have some for his new office. And me? I got a shadow box for Wildcat’s “Survivor” night memorabilia  and a frame to make a nice collage with some of the stuff we collected while in Europe.

I love projects.

And… I’m done with the first one.

This still tickles me beyond belief. What an awesome night for Wildcat! He still talks about it. He’s “Survivor’s biggest fan.”  (AND- he’s just as excited about meeting and having his picture with the Mayor.)

Another big, huge THANK YOU to everyone who made this happen. It will be a great memory for him forever.

School’s out for the summer.

Dragon finished 6th grade on Thursday. He did so great this year. Middle school has been hard for him. Not so much the work, but staying organized enough to remember to turn the work in. We fought it a lot last year. This year, I do believe he figured it out.

Four nine-week terms.  His grades came up each time.

He finished the year with all A’s and B’s.

How awesome is that!!!!??

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Wildcat had a great year, too. His teacher was awesome. She connected with him.

He entered the year taking a “reading recovery” class to help him get to grade level reading skills (he was behind). He graduated reading recovery at Thanksgiving. And he finished the year reading on a 3rd grade level. Woot!

He also is done with occupational therapy for his fine motor skills. Woot woot!

He made all +’s and E’s on his report card.

And he won the “Kid of Promise” award for his class.

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We are so proud of both of the boys. What a year!