Survived the night. No major issues and everyone has been fabulously well behaved. Its hard when there is an 80 something Mr. Wilson living next door that doesn't want to hear kids voices before 8:30 when they wake up at 6. We did it though. They were fed, beds made, bags packed and lined up and ready to go and have disappeared into the neighborhood.
Things I learned.
Karma is real. At some point in my years working at a Boy Scout Camp there was a 4th or July celebration and a trailer full of watermelon was produced. I may have instigated a food fight that sent several kids to the camp medic for minor injuries. Yesterday I look out the window and there are boys scattered at equal distances from one another all over the yard, street, neighbors yards. At the same time there are chunks of watermelon raining down with great vengeance on each of them. The baseball players were at great advantage and were whittling down there chunks to baseball size. It all went well. I will need to wash down the truck and driveway today as the truck as moved a few feet as the ants are trying to assess it and get into into their nest so they will be able to feed generations to come.
Middle School Boys are not Elementary aged boys. They stink worse and have no clue when they are in a room with a baby monitor. You want a good laugh/cry/never sleep again then listen to the conversations these kids have when they think you aren't listening.
Start putting them to bed at 4 next time. They took a while to wind down but I was asleep before 10:30.
The plan now is to give them ice cream and caffeine free cokes until their parents show up. Also, possibly hose them off. I know the parents would appreciate me knocking some of the stink off of them.
I write this to leave yet another last will and testament. Today is the much anticipated Brotherly Host Party (BHP 2K13). Boys are paying for and throwing themselves a party to host. They have invited 6-8 of their closest friends. I am not sure on the exact number as I don't think they are all here and if they are, they won't stand still for a head count. There were hand written and hand delivered invitations. I don't know who got them. I am feeling that sense of peace you feel when you know you are about to have a car wreck and you just relax and let it happen. I don't know a lot of the plans for the afternoon, evening, or morning as I was not allowed to help plan. I don't know much if I am honest.
Let's recap what I do know:
I know El Fox is with Biggie and 2Pop until tomorrow
I know that the Supermodel has been banished to study for a test and won't be back until tomorrow
I know that Pizza and Ice Cream are here. Correction, just ice cream. 2Pop will bring Pizza if I include him as a sponser for the BHP 2K13
I know CPR
I know the fastest route to the nearest hospital
I am prepared.
Even so I only have a trumpet so that will have to do.
The Supermodel told me prior to us being encaged that she wanted a daughter. I delivered about 15 months ago. I should be praised for doing what I am told. Stay Puft El Fox is a girl. We have known this for some time now. I did what was required of me. The problem is now she is showing it. I thought the Supermodel would be thrilled.
Her face is much cuter. Her feet.... about the same
First, she developed an affinity for shoes. Her morning goes something like this. Wake, Look for Shoes, Demand that we place them on her feet (you may be picturing Cinderella, think more like Shrek), run to high chair and scream in sign language the words more and please one after another. I had no idea you could scream in American Sign Language but El Fox does it quite elegantly. Great I thought, she and her mother can shop for hours looking at shoes.
El Fox in a few years
Next, she started finding anything that had a hoop large enough to slide over her arm, and carrying it around a la Sophia from the Golden Girls. It is adorable. She is girly. This is all good news, the supermodel loves bags! More shopping, more passing things down.
Her favorite designer for eyeglasses
El Fox found keys and knows to take them to the door and to tell everyone good bye (and that she is going for a breve and shoe shopping). She has also taken toys that are phone shaped and held them to her ear and just chatted away with her new best friend (whom we still haven't met). Somewhere around the fourth she got oversized star shaped sunglasses and loves them almost as much as her cousin, the blind girl of Alabama loves hers (don't ask but needless to say she isn't blind).
All was going fine. The supermodel was still excited. However, I must pause to say that the Supermodel has been harping on trains from day one. Mr. Fabulous and Wilson loved trains and so, everyone should love trains. I believe this is mostly so the Supermodel can play with them. But I digress... the straw...
Dishes are next.
Straw that broke the camel: Domestic Labor. The Fox has taken to, after eating, taking one of her baby wipes and wiping down the tray. So helpful. She then gets down and goes and wipes down the walls, cabinets and anything else at her level. Great I thought, "show her the baseboards!"
The Supermodel freaked.
Took away her cleaning rag and told her that she could be anything she wanted to be and handed her hot wheels cars to play with.
Few things. I have been wildly busy with three lab minions working on three different projects. Just when I think I am head, I realize I only have the tiger by the tail and there are three tigers. Speaking of minions, they have taken it in stride and have designed T-shirts based on the idea. Not the point for writing this. Work is work until it is a death march designed to test the will of the Gods.
Two days ago, minion number two and I had to go out and do field work at a local state park. It had to be in mid-afternoon due to the plants blooming schedule. This plant also only lives on rocky outcrops in quite direct sunlight. Assume it was 112 in the shade etc etc. I decide that the boys, dopey and bashful, should come with us and afterwards we will go for a bit of a jaunt through the forest. (Mistake 1 of ?) On the way out the door, I notice that JuneBug the dog/yard art has meandered into an open car door and in her very mild way, insisted on joining us. Why not? The more the merrier (said the Donner Party)
I miss 'back in the day'
I will spare you the details to some extent. So highlights
Basically this only less excited
At the trail head a Chilean woman asked us to go down the trail about a mile and see if we saw her teenage daughter and friend as they had left this woman and a 1 year old baby to go take a picture and hadn't come back in over an hour. See picture.
At some point there was a yellow jacket attack.
There were 1/4 mile posts counting down from 28. This gave a nice pace to the whining and incessant scheduling and rescheduling of rest stops. I will admit though that when Wilson began timing our pace between posts around mile 4, the pace piked up.
JuneBug. Oh JuneBug. Apparently we have been underestimating her advanced age. She must have thought we were trying to kill her. Her mood varied between almost amused and rolling on the ground in what appeared to be the throes of death. She may have been faking for sympathy but this was at mile 2.
Pause here and take a moment to read the classic onion article entitled "Dolphins not so intellegent on land." A quote from that article that came to mind was "the dolphins appeared to be looking directly into our eyes, as if pleading with us to help them perform better in these tests." A dolphin might have been more adept at this task. Sorry JB.
By the end I was pulling her, begging her, cajoling her, pleading.... you get the idea. My shoulder is still sore from her deciding to stop at random intervals.
My favorite mental image of the day was Mr. Fabulous, aka Senor toilet, aka bashful, sort of fell apart at the end. Spirits were broken by mile 5 or 6 but around the six and a half mile mark his body began to let him down. First it was his mouth. He stopped talking. At this point I decided he should start every morning with a six mile stroll. This was not the best though. The last mile was all down hill on loose rocks, scree is the technical term and word of the day. Mr. Fabulous lost control of his ankles. He fell over and over and over. (If he were not durable I would have been concerned. He has had three black eyes this summer. Falling down is nothing.)
The vision you should have is of a model on the runway who has had her shoes chosen for with no regard for her ability to make a 50 walk in them. Take that and combine it with the limp jointed marionette doll.....
To quote the great Alice Cooper, School is out for summer. My summer class got canceled due to low enrollment. (If I can't tempt students with 15$ worth of textbooks and 90% field trips then the class just wasn't meant to make.) So, we get to the point of the school year where I am the only person in the office on my floor and fall into a bit of a funk. Don't get me wrong, I love the academic calendar. It gives a certain rhythm to things. Problem is that the rhythm is slow right now.
Not quite this bad. Not quite.
Boys end school on Thursday and I begin the summer of minivan. I will be chasing my own tail this summer trying to hustle up as much scratch as I can. My dear sweet volvo is dying. I haven't decided to shoot it yet but it has developed a limp. It has to go in the shop soon so I hopefully will be commuting by bike. My muffin tops have missed an excuse to visit with my bike. It may be time to shed my winter weight and get beach ready. Beach ready to me means that I have whiskey and good books to read but apparently winter weight is not welcome at the beach. Soooo time to look for a bike trailer to borrow to get Stay Puft to the school or require that the supermodel be responsible for her (so I am searching the craigslist for a bike trailer)
forget a bike trailer! I want a sidecar! what the what?!
Also, this is a great time to dream about house projects. Book cases are soon but they are boring to plan. I am planning a garage renovation. Don't do this. Avoid this. There is a future
pintrest board all about dreams. In about 18 years or so, it will become a reality. Mark my words!
In addition, Mother's are the best! I would be nowhere without the mother's in my life (even if they do share drink choices with John Wayne). So, thank you Biggie. Thank you grandmother. Thank you mothers in my life who have passed away. All of you have had a huge influence on who I am today. Grandmother Hataway taught me to cook without fear and that perfectly good people prefer to sleep in. My father's grandmother who I never met taught me, through proxy, that there is never a wrong time for biscuits. Grandmother Ceil taught me that hard work never hurt anyone and being subtle will get you nowhere. Her stepmother, Bessie, taught me about dumplings and helped to give me an appreciation for Thanksgiving. My mother's side of the family taught me reverence for Thanksgiving. Bessie's kitchen table is now my kitchen table and we eat off of her everyday dishes for special occasions at The Home®.
My mother... my mother is me and I am my mother. We have very similar strengths and very similar weaknesses and she has taught me how to deal with both. She is a picture of grace and neurosis. The woman can smell things that happened weeks ago. Her garden... it is freakish and beautiful and everything is twice the size it is in other gardens. She strives for perfection and expects you to do the same. She is the matriarch and the queen. I would do anything she asked and I made her a promise early on that when I grew up I would still come over for Sunday lunch. I am not there every time but I get there at least once a month. I am a momma's boy and that is okay with me.
Finally my wife. She deals with me and the boys. We are a mess and she keeps us put together. She is not my mother so I will wait and let her children blog about her someday but, she should know that she is a great mom.
To celebrate my mothers this past weekend we ate. The boys cooked the supermodel pancakes and made her coffee. That afternoon we went to 2Pop's house. We ate ribs. We ate potato salad. We ate baked beans. And we ate pound cake.
In summary, my female role models have all been amazing and you should be jealous.
The world's sexiest supermodel suggested that we start referring to our house and its occupants as The Home®. The home for what you might ask? Well depends on the day mostly. 2Pop and Biggie, my parentals, tried to relay the story of how they met to the Russian and I on Mother's Day. Both had graduated from college. My father a bit rowdy and my mother at an all girls college. They met working at a home for disturbed children. This is all the info I have ever gotten out of them. Apparently my father asked her out on a date and mother stayed in Montgomery for the weekend. I do not know where she would have been otherwise as details are slim. What was revealed is that they went out and went to the Holiday Inn Lounge. I am not judging as apparently this was the norm. What I am judging is that my mother told me that she "drank my father under the table." Soak that up. She sat down and ordered a Crown Royale (pronounced Roy-Al)on the rocks and he ordered a Tom Collins. Now many of my readers have never had or heard of a Tom Collins. It has been replaced by the much more popular Big Cat. I will try to graphically represent the difference between the two drinks.
Whiskey Neat John "The Duke" Wayne
Tom Collins Nathan "The Birdcage" Lane
If you have not seen The Birdcage recently, fix that. Also any John Wayne cowboy movie. This will help you understand how I view the disparity in their drink choices. I am not disparaging my father. I also am not saying that I am not proud of my mother. It worked out in the end and they are living happily ever after. The supermodel and I need to work on our story. Working with disturbed children leading to drinks at the Holiday Inn followed by mother having to drive him home. That is a story that we should all be jealous of. Back to The Home®, I like this title and so I will be continuing to use it. Problems at The Home® this week include both cars being in the shop and one getting fixed, Stay Puft's keepers deciding to close up shop leaving us without a Godzilla Care Facility for the fall, and everyone trying to finish school. Guess which one has me up nights worried about the residents of The Home®. We should not worry about what we cannot change but I do. Its genetic. It will all work out and we will be fine but I will tell you this, I need more John Wayne in my life these days.
