The Average Blogger

Feeding the Mind, Taxing the Body

A friend of mine on Facebook posted something the other day -- "If life gets you down, remember you're already a winner: You were the fastest sperm!"

I rather hope that was not my last significant achievement. There are days, however ... 

So, in the past week I have:

-- Written 32 pages of my novel.
-- Edited another chunk of my dad's magnum opus.
-- Read several pages of an extant, published novel without passing out in exhaustion three sentences in at every attempt.
-- Filled out a mulch path that will allow me to get the riding mower from the back yard to the way-back yard. 
-- Lost my son to a bevy of high school girls.

My book is going apace, though I find myself more than occasionally disheartened in the process. I think I'm almost ready to cobble together an outline and send it to someone. (Define ambition: a four-book arc. That's a big outline.) The bigger question is if anyone wants to read it. We read a piece of it to the kid last night and the content may be too old for him. This makes me a little sad and leads me to wonder if I'm doing it wrong, since he's reading at a pretty advanced level. (Of course, it is also possible I picked a bad time and he just really, really wanted to get back to his computer games.) I've loaned it out to NeighborGirl and I'm waiting to hear back on her assessment. Sigh. 

I'm reading my dad's book. The content is interesting, the rewriting is kind of satisfying, and I think he'll find a publisher for it. But (she said, in her best Eeyore voice,) in a way that will be even more demoralizing because I have to believe that there's a bigger market for mutant teenagers with extreme daddy issues than there is for a fairly dry and factual biography of a corrupt robber baron dead and gone lo these many years.

At NeighborGirl's suggestion, I'm also reading The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It's slow going, and again, if a "thriller" leaning this heavily on Swedish financial history can be a megamovie, why am I so certain my stuff won't win the lottery? 

As a means of purging my angst, I spent a lot of the weekend hacking up tree branches and creating new paths around the property. The tally at this point is as follows:
Top flowerbeds: Gone, with weed killer sprayed in the rocks that are supposedly serving as a way to maintain functionality of the drain under the driveway.
Front flowerbed: Probably 3/4 done. Many rock-lined mulch paths to cut down on weeding; a few more plants need to be stuffed in holes, and I want a patio. I do not want to dig a 4-inch-deep and 12-foot-wide hole to make a patio. I want to pay someone to make my patio. I get tired thinking about the patio.
Side yards: In excellent shape, due in large part to me putting my boot on the kid's neck and making him pull weeds.
Back yard: Path from bridge to steps has had rocks added to it that look quite nice. Path from deck through springtime swampy area to driveway has been widened and edged with tree limbs to replace the rocks I repurposed for the flower bed. It all actually looks sort of planned and classy, not all white-trash junk-yard castoffs and 'well, I had some crap lying around and threw it over here instead of over there.'
Way-back yard: Still just a yard, still needs some help around the fences.

Unfortunately, there are also several dead trees and one extremely large brush pile to be addressed. I do not want to address these either. (See: patio dilemma.)

But, to end on an up note, last week did have a bit of success to it. Those of you who follow this blog with any sort of regularity know that Harry Potter has been a bit of a thing in our house for the past year or so.  The Young Prince was hot to see the movies. I insisted he had to read the books. I kept waiting for him to hit a point where he had no idea what was going on, he couldn't interpret what he was reading, he had no concept of the deeper issues. I think, in all honestly, he did fall short on that last bit, but he followed the plot OK and didn't get alarmed or unduly upset by any of the larger plot points all the way through the end of the seventh book.  So as a reward,  I agreed to allow him to attend the midnight showing of the last movie.

He was fired up to go in costume. Well, thought I, that should be easy. Surely the big chain stores will be all over that idea and have all the old Harry Potter junk out for sale again.

Hahahaha. Riiight. Maybe two days after the midnight premiere. I tried Walmart. I tried Target. I stuck my nose against the (still too early in the morning to be open) window of Spencer's. Zip. Nada.

I went to Party City, and saw an entire wall of Harry Potter tags. With no merchandise. I asked the guy when the merchandise would be out. His oh-so-helpful answer was, "Later." Hmf.  I found another Party City person and asked her if she had graduation gowns or anything of the kind, and when I explained why, she shot a very nasty look in the direction of Later Dude and said, "We've got tons of stuff in the back. Stand right here and I will bring you a costume. For age 8, you said?" God bless Party City Girl. Throw in a pair of John Lennon glasses that I spent 40 minutes working over to pop out the blue lenses, and I was in business.

The YP was appropriately grateful and excited, (though a bit peeved at my assertion that I was dressed up, I was attending as a Muggle,) and we left the house early to get dinner. The crowd we were with included the YP, myself, NeighborGirl, NeighborGirl's roommate from college, and NeighborGirl's friend from grade school, who was decked out in a schoolgirl uniform with a red/gold tie. We arrived at the theater around 8:50. There were already at least 40 people in line. And the YP got a standing ovation when he walked in. He then immediately plopped himself down with the group in front of us in line and proceeded to build himself a whole coterie. I think he would have worked his way up to the dead front of the line if I'd let him. I mean, he had three hours to do it. There was a lot of wand talk involved, and some admiration of Time Turners and Death Eater arm drawings and I don't know what all.

At some later point, he came back to where we were camped out and informed us that You Know Who was in the theater. He seemed to feel a need to do something about this. I asked if he wanted me to take him downstairs and he insisted that no, Gryffindor (NeighborGirl's childhood friend,) needed to go with him.  Fortunately, Gryffindor (whose real name is Meagan -- I think? Megan?) was completely on board with this and off they went. I have no idea what transpired, except that when they came back I was told that there are now probably several photos of my kid floating around out there that I will never see. Heh. 

After 2.75 hours of this, the theater folks opened the doors to the auditorium. We swarmed in, NeighborGirl chose the seats, and we parked ourselves. I was getting the YP settled and debating with him whether he would sit between me and a stranger or between me and NeighborGirl's roommate, when a chorus went up from behind us: "Young Prince!! You have to sit with us!!"  I turned around, and fully six high school girls were looking at him and waving him up to their row. He looked at me. I suppose it is a bad sign that I conceded defeat so easily, but I waved him off.  And off he went, with a "Be right there, Bellatrix!"  to one of the more outlandishly costumed.  I will say that either I got lucky or high school girls have gotten smarter, because he somehow wound up in the seat directly behind mine, as well as in the back row, which meant that I was fully within bounds to stand up and loom over him in the event discipline needed to be enforced without particularly bothering anyone else.  (As it turned out, this was largely unnecessary. There was one incident where he dropped his wand and the light-up end blinded someone, but that was an accident.)

I'm pleased to report that aside from all the Event-ness aspect, I did fully enjoy the movie as well, and it was entirely worth the money, lost sleep and crankiness that overtook me the next day. The boy, of course, wisely slept it off and was back on track for morning hours when drama camp resumed the following Monday.

I do hope the boy enjoyed and remembers it. I think he will. I hope he sees it as a stellar event. I rather saw it as the end of the beginning. Or the beginning of the end. I'm still deciding.

This week is a performance of a different sort. The first of his four drama camps wraps up, and he has two bit roles in their production of the Arabian Nights.  I look forward to seeing it, and I look forward to seeing him read the book; we picked it up from the library Saturday.

Annd, I've come full circle to wondering who will ever read mine. Lalalala.  Off to my own personal salt mine!

 

Summer Vacation, Part 1.

I am so ready for a vacation, y'all.  Fortunately, I only have to get through two more days before I get one.

But first, where I've been. So, Sunday was Father's Day.  To celebrate,  the Young Prince and I decided we would let Not Your Average Blogger make us breakfast.  He obliged, with pancakes which were quite lovely.

Then we went for a 3-hour hike in the Bull Run Mountains Conservancy, a lot of it uphill.  It was a lot of fun, I'm pleased to say.  Before we left, the boy and I had negotiated a bribe/promise of a whine-free outing, and he came through on his end beautifully.  He ran ahead for big parts of it, lagged behind looking at rocks and plants for other parts, and only mildly mentioned his feet once and his desire for lunch once.

We tried to tell him a couple Civil War stories, since the Battle of Thoroughfare Gap took place up there, but he was much more interested when I started telling him about the summers I spent with my grandparents as a kid. Virginia has a lot of quartzite, and every time he finds some of the shiny sparkly he's just fascinated by the "crystals."  I remember feeling the same way when I was about his age and I'd find that stuff in Leesburg, so I started telling him about how my job when I'd visit my grandparents was to get all the rocks out of their vegetable garden, and how I was supposed to throw them into the bucket scoop on my grandfather's tractor, and how occasionally my grandfather would hit me instead of the bucket, or one would bounce out and hit me, and I decided gardening was all hell and the minute I was grown up I'd just be buying my damn peas at the store, thank you very much.

(I still don't understand part of that story myself.  The vegetable garden was in the same place every year, yet every summer there seemed to be just as many rocks to get rid of as the year before.  I half-suspect my grandfather pitched them all back in at the end of the growing season just to give me something to do when I came back.)

That segued into other stories, and it didn't seem like all that long before we were at the top of Bull Run Mountain and it was time for lunch.  Going down was a lot easier, of course, and on the way back we cheated and went off the trail and along the railroad tracks instead, getting closer the ruins of Beverly Mill and some homesteads. The train tracks were a story in its own right -- the YP was utterly grossed out by the (days afterward) aftermath of when a train connects with a deer.  It was pretty nauseating, I admit. The smell alone could have knocked you over, and I've never seen so many maggots so busily at work. But, you know, teachable moments and all.  Not least of them, "don't get hit by a train, duh."

This week is the boy's first week off school, so he has been coming into the office and lounging around waiting for me to get done and take him home.  I'd feel guilty about this, except I know that sitting in my office reading, watching TV and playing video games is about as close to paradise as he gets. If I could get streaming Netflix in my office, he'd never leave, so I figure I'm indulging his idea of a vacation. 

With a few minutes out for math and writing, of course.  I'm not a total debauch.Yet, anyway.

After this week of office-dwelling, the three of us are packing up Friday and taking off for a wedding in Rhode Island. ("We've known this guy for ages, and we absolutely love the girl he's marrying. Seriously, how often does that happen?" asks NYAB. Answer: Almost never, if you are us.) When we get back, Good Friend Katherine will be blowing into town for a few days of fun and baseball, so I am working mornings and running wild with her in the afternoons. And then it will be July Fourth.  Huzzah for summer break!

Stuff and Nonsense

Two weeks ago -- I was in a big push to put out a 1200-page book profiling all members of Congress and their districts, wrapping up with a 16-hour marathon before the deadline.

Then I worked all the weekend shifts so everyone else got a 3-day weekend.

Then I took Tuesday off to go deal with My Crap -- oil changes, grocery store, you know, FUN stuff.  As I was shuttling the kid to a golf session, I get a call that the power is out at the office.  Well, OK.  The power goes out sometimes, even in first-world countries. 

It doesn't usually stay out for 3 days, though. 

So there was scrambling around and finding alternate accommodations for the people putting out that night's paper. I logged on from home and helped with that, then cataloged the various things that were broken. I logged off around 1 a.m., then checked back in at 4, only to find most of the stuff was still broken.  And stayed broken til about noon.  But we got most of our stuff out the door in varying degrees of quality.

Stayed under the laptop for most of Wednesday, with a mental health break around 3, and then checking back in at 6. Went to bed around 10 that night.

More of the same Thursday -- up at 5, bashed around on copy and whatnot til about 2.  Figured we were in decent shape so I went out and got a coat of water sealant on my deck and assorted other wooden fixtures around the house. Checked back in, then went to a movie when all looked OK.  Checked in again that night and when things were still good, I made cupcakes for the office, since the power had finally been restored and the office was being resurrected.

Got up at 5 Friday and worked til 9.  Got to the office around 11, and pitched forward on management and trench stuff until 6, when the 1200-page book returned to haunt me in soft-proof stage -- we needed four copies printed. So while one person printed the original from her machine, I made 3 photo copies using help from another person and 3 different copiers.  That wrapped up around 7, when I went to confab with my boss.  We finished worktalk around 8, then hung out a bit longer for decompression venting.

Then I went home and re-read the 1200 page book and was a little horrified by how many things were wrong in it.  Today I got to the office at 5 a.m. -- my new and improved schedule now that JB is starting his new gig as the King of Op-Ed and Special Projects -- so we'll  make all those book fixes and send it back to the printer.

And then, by god, I hope to leave by 3 and be on my way to what people around here laughingly refer to as a "work-life balance."

Meanwhile, the poor Young Prince has been a bit neglected, as you might guess.  He watched us work all week, during the book, and then his classroom performance went straight to hell.

So in the middle of all this power outage drama, we had a meeting at the school with assorted authority figures -- his teacher, the PE coach, (with whom the kid had gotten into a few scuffles and we couldn't figure out why,) a counselor (whose name is Miracle Ryder, which cracks me up no end, but hey, maybe she is, what do I know?), the assistant principal and the principal. The long and short of it? Thomas is still recognized as very smart, but he's also still a total doof about proving it.  In the course of a one-hour meeting, it was suggested that he might qualify for both the gifted program and for special ed.  At the same time.  

So after that, we went to great lengths to make sure SOMEONE was chasing the kid around the yard and reminding him that we have performance expectations for him, and that he's smart and we know it, but he needs to prove it to other people by writing as well as he talks. I think he was truly astonished when I said to him, "Look.  You read at a 7th-grade level. You think at a high-school level.  You talk like an adult.  But you write like a preschooler. Unless you WANT people to think you're a dummy, you've GOT to fix this and start writing as well and quickly as you speak." I know I had never put it across to him like that before, and I'm hopeful it made a dent.  But I won't know for a couple more days.  He's got a book report he has to work on this week, and I'm curious to see how he does on his first pass unassisted.

Meanwhile, he still insisted he doesn't have time to finish his timed math tests.  Well, I proved to him that he had that one wrong too.  I said, 'How long does she give you?" And he said, "three minutes."  (Note, I seriously doubt it's 3 minutes. It might be 5, or 10, but probably not 3.) Anyway, I said, 'OK, then, let's see if it really is too hard for you to do in 3 minutes."  And I started the stopwatch and read the problems aloud to him.  Even with four or five, 'Ummmmm, Ummmmm... wait wait!! Oh! 12!" kind of stalls, he still answered them all in 2.5 minutes.  "I did??? That was less than 3 minutes??"  "Yes. So, OK, no more excuses, right?" 

So he came home the next day and was very excited that he had filled in answers for every problem on his timed test.  Apparently the teacher and I both gave the same answer: "Good! Hope you filled in the RIGHT answers for every problem!" 

I love his teacher.  I totally want to be her friend once she has fulfilled her professional obligation to my small cretin. Sigh. Only two weeks to go.  I wonder what fun will commence then!

Going Places, Doing Things

Since moving to DC, we've had a number of encounters with friends here on family vacations.

A woman I've been friends with since third grade was in town yesterday with her husband and three kids, and we had lunch together. It was very nice to see them, the family was absolutely lovely, and everyone else at Union Station for lunch at that time was reasonably polite and friendly.

But it's funny to me. The kids were clearly worn out and I could see that the idea of hiking up the road to look at paintings of dead people in yet another frigging museum would not have been in their top 10 -- not even top 100 -- choices for a fun afternoon. And it got me thinking about how none of the kids I've seen from out of town ever seem to have a lot of enthusiasm for DC visits. And as a kid who made an annual trek into DC with my Virginia-resident grandparents every summer, I can completely understand it. There's a lot of walking, a lot of standing around in museums where you don't really know enough to understand why it's a big deal that you're looking at this stuff, a lot of walking, not a lot of places to play, and oh, did I mention the walking?

(When I was a kid, this visit was always kicked off by getting up before sunrise so we could take the train to Union Station. Honestly? I still think my grandfather was a little insane for preferring that method. The train was sort of nice and all, and I remember -- this being the old and unsafe days -- standing outside on the platform of the last car and watching the track fly away behind us, and the water cooler was sort of neat -- but jeez, we could have gotten up two hours later and arrived at the same time. Except if we had done that, OMIGOD WE WOULD HAVE HAD TO PAY FOR PARKING!!) 

Plus, some of the most pleasant memories I have of those DC tours are gone now. The old-fashioned ice cream parlor at the American History Museum? First they fired the waiters (this was the first place I ever saw waiters in black pants and starched white coats,) and made it a buffet, then they cut back on the menu, then they ditched it completely in the overhaul.

And you can't just blunder in and out of the Capitol anymore. There are stickers and mental detectors and I don't know what all. And it's shut down entirely on Sundays, even the visitor center. This strikes me as kind of dumb, to not allow people in to look around when there is no actual business being conducted. But I guess that lack of logic isn't too surprising; this is the seat of federal government. I loved roaming around that building as a kid because there was so much cool stuff to look at. Paintings, frescoes, statuary, really cool furniture. And I knew that Important Things went on there. Although I remember my grandmother took me in so we could watch a House floor session one time, and I was ready to pass out with boredom. I didn't know what issue they were talking about, I couldn't figure out how any of the speakers felt about it, and I had the distinct feeling that my grandmother couldn't have cared less so it didn't seem like it was worth trying to figure out.

I took Thomas to sit in on a session of the Senate when he was about 5. After about 10 minutes he said, "You watch this on CSPAN and it looks like court on TV too. Why are we here?" 

It seems that the one enduring fascation for the under-12 set is the wildlife.  I remember being astonished at the sheer number of pigeons in the city, and stomping after them to chase them off. Thomas is a big fan of the ducks in the reflecting pool. And pretty much every kid we've ushered through the city is way, WAY more interested in the squirrels than in the Hope diamond. So there's the welfare critters and the carousel, and once you've hit those, you might as well wander up to the Air and Space museum because they've got a McDonald's and you know the food will be what you expect.

Now, I'm pretty sure it isn't just DC that does this to kids. We went to New York and the YP was bored stiff with huge portions of our planned activities. He was far more interested in the M&M store than he was in the Met. He found room service far preferable to venturing out on yet another hike, even to find an ice cream place.

So why do we do this? Why do we take our kids places where we know they are going to whine that they are bored, complain that their feet hurt, and ask over and over and over and over and over when they can play their video games?

Mostly, I think we do it for ourselves.  I know there have been plenty of cases where I dragged my kid places because I wanted to see them and couldn't really figure out a way to ditch him. There have been other times where I dragged him somewhere because I thought it was important for him to be exposed to something; even if he didn't have the faintest idea what was going on, there might be some tiny impression made so that in later years I could tell him, "you saw that, you remember any of it?"  And of course, there have been other times when I thought our plans would go over like gangbusters and instead they were a big fat failure that left everyone miserable and mad at each other.

So is it worth it? Is it worth dragging your kid halfway across the continent so that five years later they can remember the pigeons? So they can say, 'Oh, I remember Mount Rushmore. I remember you made me eat a hot dog I didn't want because they were out of hamburgers."

I think the answer is yes. Because while I might remember the pigeons more clearly than the presidential exhibits, what really stuck with me was that everyone in my family cared enough about me to take me a whole bunch of different places and show me all kinds of strange stuff, and even put up with me when I was being a godawful brat about all the damn walking. That involvement isn't something you can just hand off to a coach or a teacher, and it's something you can't really try to play catch-up on at the end of a childhood.

So to all my relatives who took me places and showed me stuff, thank you.  And thank you also to all you grownups out there who do this stuff for the kids in your sphere of influence.  And finally, an extra big thank you to all the other people milling around the planet who have the kindness to keep their opinions to themselves and who graciously tolerate those kids being exposed to such things, even when the kids in question are resisting and kicking up an awful scene about how miserable they are. 

(This weekend, though, we are going somewhere I know will be a big hit. We're driving up to Hershey tomorrow and spending the day at the park, then tooling around town the next day and Sunday-Driving home. Huzzah!)

Bugged

So, last week the Young Prince was off school, and he spent huge chunks of time in my office.

Today, he returned to class. So what did I do? I took the day off. Because that's just how I roll.  I'd rather have a day off by myself than take a day off with my kid and -- I don't know, do something mildly entertaining, if not outright fun.

This is not really the case, of course. It just sort of feels that way.  Actually, I took today off because I was looking around our place yesterday and was completely overwhelmed with how much stuff Really Ought To Get Done Right Frigging Now Today.  Those brush piles won't move themselves, you know! 

So I was all set. I'd work my usual 5 a.m. to 10, then as soon as someone else logged on for work, I'd go put a dent in all this yard work and maintenance and bleeblah.

Except at 10, I got up from under my laptop to find all my little ant friends had come out to play in my kitchen. 

I'm extremely exasperated with this. There I was, congratulating myself that we had finally accomplished an Easter where we didn't have an infestation that meant we had to throw out half the candy before the kid even knew it was Easter,  and the little buggers had gone and done an end run around me into my pantry.

So, I thought, at least I have a good blog post.

Then I saw on Facebook that friggin' everyone has friggin' ants. 

Oh, well. Misery, company, all that.

My main problem with ants is not so much dealing with them in the immediate crisis.  It's kind of irritating, and they are a pain to get rid of, but I don't fiddle around with it.  I don't really hold much hope for ant traps or organic deterrents or whatever.  I am a drown-them-in-poison girl.  (Yes, even in my kitchen.  And yes, as a matter of fact I do love my kid just as much as you love yours, so don't even start in on me about killing him with DDT or whatever. It may be that I love my kid more, because I will not give him a bowl of cereal that turns black when you add milk.)

(I had a roommate who suffered that fate. I don't think he has been able to eat Lucky Charms ever since.)

No, my problem  -- and I'm sure I'm not alone -- is the psych-out after-effect trauma.  I can shower three times and still feel them crawling on me.  I get a tickle in my throat and I'm sure I've swallowed one that's trying to crawl back to freedom. I get all heebiejeebied if the wind blows a little and my hair hits my neck funny. Urgh. 

The YP is not nearly as put out by all this.  He tends to ignore them -- and attract them, by creating crumbs. The only real acknowledgment he has given them was to tell me my sweeping up wasn't working:  "Mom, you need to bug-spray your broom. Half the dirt in your pile here is crawling away."

I guess I should be grateful he isn't setting them on fire with a magnifying glass, right? Or maybe not?

So I sprayed my kitchen down, then scrubbed it. Sprayed every ant trail and entry point I could find on the ground floor, then scrubbed up those. Then I went outside and pressure-washed pretty much the whole house. (This is not a reaction to ants. This was on my stay-home agenda in the first place.)

And now, it is 3 p.m. and my feet hurt and I have showered and I'm basically done for the day. I'll be knitting if you need me. Those brush piles are gonna have to move themselves. But I've got my can of Raid handy, just in case.

All Moved In

So, last week was the Young Prince's spring break.  It was also my company's first week in the new building. This worked out well, on several levels.

My slave performed his labor admirably -- no complaining, except when he was worried about dropping something heavy; digging into boxes and putting stuff away unbidden, crawling under my desk to plug in assorted lamps and chargers. And when the labor was over, he maintained his delightful behavior by not running amok, but simply plopping down under my desk and reading his book until given dispensation to play his video games.  He was less pleased with the four math worksheets I threw at him every day, but he even did those without too much grief. Better, from his view, was his reward for getting them done: My new office (which I like very much and find quite a nice home away from home,) has a television -- with a plug for headphones -- so he also had cartoons aplenty. 

This was especially good given he spent three days cooped up here -- not just two, as originally anticipated.

The other nice part of having him here was that it meant the family could go out exploring as a unit. As it stands, the only thing I haven't found yet is a stairwell. (And a list of new phone extensions, but that's a diferent matter.) The rooftop "terrace" is very nice, there are a couple different places to eat close by even if you exclude Union Station, and the fitness room is much nicer than I was expecting.  The kid was a little miffed I wouldn't let him burn off some energy in there, but since I'd had to sign 2 forms promising not to sue if I fell off the treadmill I figured the Powers With Security Cameras would take a dim view of my throwing my kid on there.

Now, of course, his break is over and I'm just feeling guilty that we didn't do anything more fun than explore a new office building and let him rot his brain on TV while I read reams of copy and sat through several meetings.  So perhaps tomorrow we will make it up to him in some as-yet-undetermined fashion, weather depending.

And next year's spring break will be much, much better. And hopefully warmer.   

Overloaded

So, last week I wound up working til 3 a.m. on Friday because of the congressional pissing contest over spending for a fiscal year that is already half over.  Then I worked Saturday night. And Sunday morning. And Sunday night. 

And lo, I was cranky.

Monday had a moment of brightness: I took the Young Prince to open a savings account and he actually seemed to grasp the concept. I asked what he was going to save up for. He said he wasn't sure, but he had 10 years to decide. The bank lady suggested a car. I suggested college.  The YP said, "Hm. Maybe both.  A hybrid car so I can save money on gas and a college close to here so I can come home and eat."  It's almost like he has been listening to us over time.

Tuesday was the usual whirlwind of school/drama class/swim lessons/home just in time to eat and go to bed. There was also a bit of angst because the YP decided he was empowered to argue with his teacher about fractions.  That does not fly, and he was set straight with absolutely no room for argument -- with his teacher or his mother.

Wednesday I got up at 4:30, did my morning obligations for my job, and raced out the door at 7:10 a.m. to chaperone a field trip to the science museum in Richmond -- arriving at 7:30 to catch charter buses that didn't actually leave until about 8:45. It was a lot of fun, and the YP and I had a pretty good time. He loved the exhibits, he stayed with me and rode herd on his two little friends,  and all was ginger-peachy until the last 20 minutes or so of the (two-hour, one-way) bus ride, at which point I think The Tired hit both of us, which manifested in him getting mouthy and me getting impatient. Yet we both kept it fairly contained til we got to our own car, at which point all hell broke loose and the boy was very nearly tossed back out to walk home.  As penance, he did two hours of math homework -- more or less unbidden; I'd simply told him he could figure out a way to make it up or he could go straight to bed.  Instead he spent two hours working on double-digit subtraction.  So ... yay?

And Thursday, of course, he came home with a note that he'd behaved beautifully. This pattern, it never ends. Fortunately, next week is spring break, so we can all sort of regroup. I'll have more time to focus on how to get the best out of him, and he'll have more time to show me his best.

Meanwhile, I have also been going through my office and packing it up for the umpteenth time in this job, as we are moving again. 

When I was pregnant, my company had signed the papers to move out of an office down the street from where we are now. I packed up my boxes, went on maternity leave, and two months later I went back to work with a relatively new baby/company mascot and a brand-new desk in a brand-new building that shaved three blocks off my commute. Since then, I have changed desks three times, moved down a floor and into an office, then up a floor and into another office.  And now we are moving to a new building, closer to the Capitol, smushing in with all the employees from both branches of our outfit, with all this Change to process.  New commute, new parking rules, new place to sit, new floorplan, new neighborhood.

I should be excited.  Frankly, I'm just wiped the hell out.

Which is kind of weird, because life in general is a lot less complicated than the last time my office moved. Heck, I've even got slave labor to carry assorted boxes up to my new digs -- even if he is a rather short and scatterbrained slave.

So Monday, the Blogger family is reverting to an old tradition and piling into the car and heading into the city as a unit. Not Your Average Blogger will fix up his new space -- a window seat! -- and the YP and I will set about organizing my space, then we will all head over to the Capitol complex for our annual visit: NYAB and I will get updated press passes; we will visit my favorite building; we will probably wolf down some lunch. Then we will head back to work, where I will read copy and the kid will work on his fractions.Without arguing.

On top of all this, I am mulling the idea of churning out 100 or so jars of jelly to sell at a library fundraiser thingie. The deal is I pay $50 to the fundraiser for table space, then I get to keep whatever money I make selling stuff. I figured I have to sell 25 jars to make up the cost of the table, so anything beyond that is good news for me.

And yet ... didn't I just say I was exhausted? Why am I thinking like this? A new swing and deck stand arrived yesterday that I could put together instead and just laze on for the whole rest of the summer. How come that isn't at the top of my list?

Two Vignettes

Vignette the First:  Ant Season (Probably Act 1 of many)
Me: Why is that piece of radio antenna on the floor?
Young Prince: Oh! I'll throw it away. There was a piece of cereal on the floor covered with ants, so I didn’t want to pick it up with my hands. I used that instead.”
Me: Oh.  Good thinking.
YP: And then I threw the cereal down the heating vent.
Me: What!?! Why!?!
YP: To kill the ants.  If I threw it in the trash can, the ants would just keep living and get all over everything.
Me: Throwing ants in the heating vent doesn’t kill them. It just lets them travel to other parts of the house.
YP: But shouldn't the heat burn them to death? And what do they eat when the cereal is gone?

Clearly, he is forgetting all the other stuff he's thrown down the heating vent over the years.

Vignette the Second: Race-Gender Politics

YP (playing a video game): “ARGH! You know, it’s better to be a girl than black.”
Me (moderately alarmed at what might come next): “Wait, what?”
YP: “Well, it is in Star Wars. I mean, Lando gets choked by Chewbacca, but Leia doesn't.”
Me: “Oh. Well, yes, I suppose I see your point.”

Pattern Remains Unbroken

Sure enough, I got home from work a few minutes behind the Young Prince's bus. I walked into the house, and he popped up from behind the couch, where he stashes his toys. In one hand was an ice cream cone, and in the other was a piece of paper he was waving at me. Jubilantly.

Apparently he went from ridiculous to sublime, because this note from the teacher was all about how beautifully he had performed at school that day -- finishing all his work, dealing with frustrations appropriately, helping other kids with their reading, etc.

And back and forth, around again.

He carried that behavior through the rest of the night, too.  He finished his homework in record time -- 100 math problems in 8 minutes.  Word study of 25 spelling words in 5 minutes. On point in drama class, remembering all his lines and remembering to project them.  Doing what he was told in the pool when I showed him what he WAS doing vs. what he SHOULD be doing.

Extra bonus: Utterly affectionate and non-argumentative, to the moment he went to sleep.

I said to Not Your Average Blogger: Perhaps we should just start every morning with a knock-down-drag-out fight?

He said: Eh. That'll happen soon enough, and there won't be any all-day acts of contrition to be gained from them.

Pleased.  Proud. Hopeful.  But braced for the inevitable. I mean, he is an 8-year-old boy. Those boy-chemicals have to release sometime somehow, right?

And More Projects

So, I went to Goodwill.  And then I looked at my basement and realized I have at least one more carload of junk I can drop off there. 

I got another six rows done on the baby blanket. Only, oh, 120 or more to go.

I attached the safety net to the trampoline. And realized there are also anchors I should put in -- even though the ground is like pudding right now -- and then realized I can't get the spikes planted all the way down -- even though, yes, the ground is like pudding right now. There's also a ladder. For a trampoline that doesn't even come up to my hip bone.  Whatever.

You'll notice I'm still assiduously avoiding the yard work angle.

I read some of my dad's book last night during the Young Prince's swim lesson. Only 15 more pages left in that chapter. Then I have to type all my hard-copy fixes into the Word file.

Tonight I will read more while the YP is in drama class. And then I will put it away and throw the kid and myself in the pool to practice kicking.  He's far and away the best swimmer in his class, but he still can't swim 25 yards without dropping dead about 2/3 of the way, and that's what is needed to get to the next level.  So we are going to work him twice as many times a week.  Build up those lungs. Build up those legs.  And soon my threats of kicking his ass when he misbehaves will be for naught.

And, oh, how he misbehaves.  It's a total pattern now.  Six schooldays of great behavior, one day of total fucking Japanese nuclear meltdown. And those days come harder and harder, because of course the six days become the expected norm.  It's hard for him. It's hard for his teacher. It's hard for us.

We hit a new low point today, when he told me he'd rather just stay in bed, because school has too many rules and he would just screw it up anyway because that's just who he is. 

Sigh.

Well, I started out sympathetic. That certainly is not who he is, look at all the good scores last week. And yeah, it's hard, but he isn't dumb, he knows what he needs to do and how to do it. 

He didn't care.

I got firmer and told him that there were plenty of times his dad and I would just as soon stay home and watch movies all day, but we still go to work. Obligation. Responsibility. Challenges. Not letting That Thing beat you down, whatever That Thing is.

He growled at me.

I snapped back at him that OK, if he really wanted to play it that way, he could bloody well stay home and I'd be his teacher and he'd just see about rules and work and expectations. I was more than happy to kick him outside to pick up sticks and dig holes and then come in and do hours upon hours of math problems.

That got him up. Also stomping mad, but I was done, I left him to get dressed. Unfortunately, that meant that when Not Your Average Blogger stumbled into his room, he got a screaming earful from the kid -- pretty much just for saying good morning. 

Which meant the kid got a screaming earful from me. Shouting and recriminations and sonic blasts from all sides.  I can't imagine what the neighbors must have thought.

Though I bet they were glad when I went out to set up the trampoline screen, because then it was only one person hollering, albeit with more cussing.

By the time the schoolbus showed up, things had evened out. He was resolute, I was encouraging, all that parenting stuff seemed to be on an upswing. 

Which means either he'll come home this afternoon in black despair or he'll come home with perfect marks, and everything will be just peachy til next Wednesday.

Harumph.  I still foresee yard work in his future. And math.