Thursday, August 20, 2009

Back to School Part Two...

I spent today:

I walked and ran for about 45 minutes today. Then I stretched for about 15 minutes. This is something I'm hoping to keep up. I've always wanted to be a runner. I'm not so good with the endurance portion of any activity. But I was inspired by E, who started in a similar position and then ran the Chicago Marathon. So I'm hoping to get in shape, have my clothes fit better, and just be more healthy.

On facebook tending my farm. I've decided I don't really like Farm Town because I don't know how I feel about people trying to chat me up when I'm on my farm. Plus when I go to the market with my stuff, it's a little creepy for people to be in the market place wanting work and begging people looking for people to do work. I don't know. More power to the people who like it. I have some family on there and a few friends, but it's not really an avenue that I want to take to keep in contact with people. I generally am more the type of person to not really keep in close contact with anyone. It's who I am.

I also did laundry. I finished up what Dirty started this weekend while I was gone on my trip to Ohio to see my mom and brothers. I did a few more loads so the boys have clothes to wear tomorrow.

I vacuumed and swept my floors. Sometimes I feel like vacuuming is a bit of a waste because our carpet is so disgusting from 9 years of us living on it and never being professionally shampooed. But I do enjoy walking barefoot throughout my house and not having anything get stuck on the plantar surfaces of my feet.

I cleaned the bathroom while I daydreamed about slipping into The Royale for a midday cocktail. After which, I went into the kitchen on autopilot to make an iced coffee and accidentally started to make a cocktail instead. So I dumped out the liquor, luckily I snapped to before I wasted too much, and made the iced coffee.

I watched some Flight of the Conchords clips on youtube. Business Time is one of my favorites. But really all of their stuff is hilarious.

Then I went to the bus stops. Well, really I stood in between the two stops hoping that they didn't both come at the same time. I had no idea which direction they were going to come from. So I walked quickly between the two stops everytime I thought one of their buses might have arrived. Dirty was on his way home, and I knew that the buses would be running late since it was the first day, but I was worried nonetheless. So I saw SC come out of her house and start walking to the stop. It did occur to me, in one of my many trips back and forth between blocks, that The Scientist might be old enough to get off of the bus himself and walk to where I was waiting for Monkey who is not allowed off of the bus unless a parent or guardian is there to receive him. SC let me know that, yes, indeed The Scientist can get off of the bus without a parent or caregiver there. And we talked about some other logistics. The buses did come about the same time. The Scientist's bus got their first and as we walked to, and arrived at, Monkey's stop, his bus showed up. I talked with the Scientist to see how he would feel about walking, the two blocks to where I would be waiting for Monkey, by himself. I would never be okay with this in other circumstances, but, in this instance, I would be able to see him get off the bus and walk toward me the entire way. He's been asking me, for at least a year now, if he could walk home by himself...when his school was about two miles away. But now, he's a little older, I trust his judgement when crossing the street, and he's ready for a little more responsibility. So tomorrow, is day one of The Scientist walking two blocks to where I'll be waiting for Monkey. I really do enjoy some of the things about the boys getting older.

Both boys had great days at school. We went to Cici's as a special treat for the first day. The boys got to play video games while we were there and get little trinkets from the "gumball" machines. Then we came home. I cleaned the kitchen, which had fallen into disrepair from the soccer practice nights of the week, while Dirty put the boys to bed.

And now I'm blogging, listening to more Flight of the Conchords, and will probably head to bed soon...after I fold another load of laundry. Tomorrow, is the last day of school for the week. Sometime this weekend we're going to Elephant Rock's. We'd originally planned to go on Saturday, but then I started worrying about all the people that might be out then too. So we might save it for Sunday, when less people are out and about.

Back to School...

I don't have much to say. The boys got ready without too much fuss. The Scientist had a bit of an issue with being defiant. I think in order to have some control over the situation. Monkey seemed excited for the day. Plus he gets to ride a bus this year. And now they are off to school for another year. I kind of miss just being home all day while they would go off, but I know that I need to finish what I started. I can't just stay home forever. I want a career and a degree and more importantly a paycheck. So I'll stay the course. Even though I want to sit on my butt all day and watch crappy daytime tv, I'm going to do some laundry, tidy up the house, and maybe even clean the kitchen. Here's a slideshow of the morning.

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

It escalates so quickly...

I let the boys watch a couple Chaotic shows on youtube.com this morning. Afterward though, I felt guilty. So we had lunch, and I gave the boys directions that they could play with anything that doesn't have to be turned on or plugged in. The Scientist being a gaming convert complained because everything else is sooo boring. I persevered though and stuck to my directions. Monkey went into the bedroom and found a box (quite easily might I add since I cleaned and organized their bedroom and toys) of small action figures. The box contained knights, bowmen, Gormiti, Power Rangers, Megaman, and Transformer guys. Monkey then made a battle area where he clipped two dishtowels together and stuffed the ends into the chair and couch cushions so they spanned a small area over the fighters. The Scientist made a base up high on the windowsill. They played nicely for maybe 15 minutes, while I walked around the house picking up and tidying, before I heard The Scientist either blocking or creating force fields for every single move the Monkey made. Remember how I said The Scientist wasn't happy about being diverted from the tv and computer?

They stayed together in the living room for a little bit longer, but then The Scientist came to me to say that he was "so bored". I stayed with the conversation trying to help him find something else that he could do. I picked up books. I showed him other toys. I pulled out LEGOS. His response was that that was all BORING. Monkey then picked up on the tension between The Scientist and I, and began trying to find as many things to "do" that would entertain The Scientist and aggravate me at the same time. Because really if it was aggravating me it was entertaining The Scientist. They ganged up on me, but they were playing together. So I let it go. They were in their room. They were playing together. They were sticking to my original instructions. I went into the bathroom to take the nail polish off of my toe nails.

The boys were both giggling. Monkey ran past me into the living room. Then past me into my bedroom. Then past me again into their bedroom. That's when out of the corner of my eye, I see that there are white flakes creating a trail everywhere Monkey ran. Those flakes I realize are instant mashed potatoes (Don't judge me. They are quick and the boys in my house don't notice the difference, or care for that matter, if our mashed potatoes come from a box.) Apparently, the entertaining themselves had entered a new level and that level was a mess through the house. This called for a plan of action.

Step one: Separate the children. Step two: Vacuum up the mashed potato flakes before they somehow get wet. Step three: Explain to Monkey why having food ground into the floor of an old house where bugs, rodents, and goodness knows what else get in all the time is NOT a good idea. Monkey resisted initially because he "likes bugs", but then I got to the beetles and the rodents and he wasn't as blase about feeding them.

Step one was where I separated the children. I sent Monkey to his bed and The Scientist to the couch. Then while cleaning up and calming down, made them stay there for thirty minutes of quiet time. Monkey was not going to comply to this easily. He yelled at me from his bed about why he doesn't care if he feeds the bugs. But then, while on his rant he heard imagined a beetle in his room and got scared. I looked in to see if there was indeed a beetle, which there wasn't, and went about my business of painting my nails during that little bit of quiet time. Within five minutes, Monkey was quiet, which I thought maybe he'd escaped through the curtain and over the piano into the living room, but I didn't hear any giggling. He had not escaped. He did fall asleep though. I was able to finish painting my nails, let them dry for a while, and now I'm writing this...in the quiet...but man that got out of control so fast.

Monday, August 10, 2009

Monkey and his girlfriends...

This evening as I was making dinner, Monkey came in and out of nowhere said, "I only love A, Ma, Mo and E."

So I asked, "Why do you only love them?"

His reply, "Because they're my girlfriends! Because they're BEAUTIFUL!!!"

After a little giggle, I responded, "Yes, they are."

Later, after Dirty got home, Monkey went to him and told him pretty much the same thing. "I only love A, Ma, Mo and E, because they're beautiful." Look out, Ladies.

Monday, August 3, 2009

Summer Shower aka Zeus Says "Go Inside"...

It was mid-afternoon, about the time that I feel like taking a nap, and the same time that the boys want to run back and forth through the house chasing, tackling, and catching each other while giggling and screaming, let's be honest, their heads off. I see no problem with that, except that we live on the second floor and have downstairs neighbors. I try to be considerate and prohibit things like jumping off the top bunk while pretending to sky dive or playing "Whack-a-Mole Towering Tower" (thank you grandparents) at the very least when the neighbors are home. We are a loud family. I'm sure our neighbors know it and talk about us with each other. Sometimes we don't quite know when to put on a more "public" face and being that our neighbors are pretty close and every little scratch or sneeze bounces off of the bricks in the city, I'm sure they know more about us than they would ever care to know.

I got off track, this particular day our downstairs neighbor C. was home and the boys had a ton of energy to expel, so I made them go outside. At that point in the summer, the bugs weren't so bad. Please don't get me started about how I get eaten alive every time I go near the door now. I'm sick of scratching, but I'm glad I now have nails.

Once again off track, so I saw that it was windy outside and figured the mosquitoes would have a harder time controlling their flight patterns because of the wind. Not ten minutes after we went outside it started thundering. The Scientist started in with "Zeus is saying we are supposed to go inside!" and "Zeus is very angry! He's going to attack us!" I was thinking there is no way I'm taking you guys inside just to have to running, bouncing, banging off of every hard surface just because of a little thunder. I told them we could go inside if Zeus started throwing lightning bolts. At first, they sat on the porch with me. Monkey ate a snack of shredded carrots, chickpeas, and orange bell pepper. The Scientist played with some dinosaur figures. Then Monkey finished his snack.

After his snack, he started getting his hands wet and making hand prints on the wall between the front doors of our house and our neighbors. That turned into running out into the rain for a few seconds then racing back up the steps onto the porch. Which then turned into moving a little further down the sidewalk. Eventually, The Scientist wanted to join in so he ran out and started getting wet. Once they were both thoroughly soaked, they realized they were having fun running around in the summer shower. So we stayed outside and the boys ran back and forth on the sidewalk, beat the crap out of a tree, and pretended to be "seekers" like Huntik on cw4kids. When they started to get cold they came up on the porch, where there was some sword fighting and being skittish in front of the camera. After quite a few tries, I did get a decent picture of both of them.

My final note, that doesn't really have anything to do with summer showers or Zeus, I will not be using Photobucket.com again. The site is so slow and it takes forever to edit pictures. I used slide.com for this.