Category: Family

Nothing much to report about the kid’s first day back. It wasn’t as awful as they thought (hoped) and they were basically smiles when they got home. Lots of paperwork to fill out along the lines of “What’s your child like?” and “Help me understand your child better.” They’ve even prepared their snacks for lunch tomorrow.

As for me, it was nice having a full day. I spent the morning in a martial arts lesson and then the afternoon putting another finish coat on the armoire. While on the subject, I expect to be finishing it, completely, tomorrow. The only catch will be whether the Wife and I can get the cabinet up the stairs. There’s a decent chance of managing it because I can strip the shelves, top and doors off; which still leaves a lot of weight, but it’s manageable.

My respite will be short lived, though. Cub Scouts is gearing up; I’ll probably be doing some tutoring; and I’ve got lots of projects to make progress on. Should be an interesting year for us all.

So the boy and the lass are rough housing on the floor for awhile. They’ve got some kind of game going involving the dogs and trying to keep each other from touching the dogs, or something like that.

When they rough house like that, the same thing happens every time: someone gets dinged. Ninety percent of the time, it’s the lass. Though every now and again the boy will smack his head on something.

Time was when I, or the Wife, would warn them off that something would happen. We’ve long since given up on that because it’s easier to talk a wall down than get them to listen. It never did anything that frustrate us anyway. I’ve even begun rationalizing that it’s good to let them suffer the consequences of their actions, whatever they might be.

So today, when I heard the whine start from the lass, I knew that it was just about over. The boy hadn’t caught on yet and was still hauling on her. But when he finally let go, she got up and continued her pre-tear ritual and came running up to me. I was dealing with laundry at the time.

“Dad, I…” was all she got out before I cut her off without looking at her.

“Unless it’s bleeding or broken, I don’t want to hear about it,” I stated flatly. I wasn’t going to play referee or scold the boy when 10 seconds earlier they were both giving and getting consensually.

She hovered there for a few seconds, then the boy came over and started hauling on her again. The game was back on.

Sometimes, parenting it blissfully easy.

I spent the late afternoon spreading the remainder of the river rock. The kids, once again, attempted to aid me. They were somewhat less enthusiastic than on Friday. Not surprising since this time they knew what they were in for.

So anyway, while I’m loading up another bucket with rock, I hear the boy tell the lass “Duck!”

So I glance over and the boy is standing on the edge of the area where the rock has been spread with a bucket that appears to be mostly empty. He’s holding the bucket by the blue handle with his right hand.

The lass is standing out in the area where the rock has been spread. She just dumped a bucketful of rocks and was heading back to either look like she was loading another bucket, or give it that old 6-year-old try.

“Duck!” the boy said again, and then he kind of flung the bucket up and out. There was a little rock still in it. Rather than reach in with his other hand and remove it, he was trying to launch it from the bucket. Fortunately, the bucket was spinning wildly on the handle pivots and the rock didn’t go anywhere.

As he loaded for a second try, no doubt more attuned to keeping the bucket from spinning around as he flung it, I said simply “That’s a really bad idea.”

The boy looked over at me for a moment. I stood there, one hand on the shovel, sweating and tired, and looked back at him silently.

He reached into the bucket, pulled the stone out and dropped it onto the other stones. Then, he returned to loading his bucket.

And that’s how an emergency trip to the dentist was avoided today.

My latest landscaping project involves a patch of our yard that we haven’t known what to do with for awhile. It’s a small area on the north side of the house, so it doesn’t get much Sun. Thus, not much grass grows there. But weeds grow there just fine. It also gets beat up quite a bit as all our cord wood is stacked in that area as well. For the most part, in the Summer it’s a weedy mess and the rest of the year it’s a muddy mess.

So I finally decided to act to improve it. Yesterday, I laid down about 600 square feet of weed cloth, after weed whacking the snot out of the entire area. I also cleaned it all up from the shards of wood and various other things that had collected there over time. I spent the afternoon getting the area prepped and then most of this morning putting a rock wall edging in place.

All of that was in preparation for today when, this afternoon, 4 tons of large river rock was dropped in our driveway. The rocks are all smooth and round and vary in size from large golf balls to squished baseballs. I had originally hoped the driver would be able to drop the stone over the edge of our driveway onto the destination patch of yard. That way the remainder of the project would be spreading stone instead of hauling stone.

Unfortunately, things didn’t work out that way and now I’m hauling stone.

Surprisingly, the boy and the lass decided to pitch in and help. So we all worked together scooping stones into buckets. I scooped stone into a two-and-a-half gallon bucket; the boy scooped stone into a large beach bucket and the lass scooped stone into a small beach bucket. Each bucket appropriately sized for it’s user. I used a square shovel to fill the bucket, the boy used a smaller spade shovel, and the lass used a plastic beach shovel.

I kid you not.

The shovels didn’t last long for the kids though. After it started getting difficult, they decided the best thing was to sit on top of the pile of stone and fill their respective buckets by hand. This arrangement also afforded them with plenty of opportunity for messing with each other. One would make a cave, and then the other would sabotage the work by causing a collapse. Every now and again, a bucket would get filled and they would dutifully go and dump it in the yard.

They worked like that alongside me for the better part of 2 hours. It was fine by me because I was so exhausted after a bit of hauling that I could care less if they started throwing rocks at one another. As long as the rocks eventually ended up where they were supposed to, it was fine by me; and that many fewer I had to deal with.

They both quit before I did, washing themselves off with the hose before going to cool off in the pool for a bit. I just found it remarkable because we have a hard enough time getting them to clean up their dishes after a meal. Yet here they voluntarily were hauling stone.

The mind boggles.

Driving home in the car this morning, the boy asked “Dad, does school start next week?”

“No, it starts in two weeks,” I answered.

Way back when I was still in school, there was a commercial that started with the song It’s The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. It then showed a picture of a parent gliding on a grocery cart down the aisle of the store. The aisle was filled with notebooks and pens and pencils. Well after the parent sailed off the screen, the two kids came trudging along behind him, their faces downcast and sullen.

I was old enough back then to get a chuckle out of it. When I confirmed that school was starting soon, both the boy and the lass immediately assumed the same demeanor as the kids in that commercial.

I got a chuckle out of that too.

This was the Summer of Camps for the kids. While we were away in Greece, they went to a Y-based day camp for a week to keep the preoccupied. Then, shortly after we returned, the boy had his Scout Camp. Finally, for the passed 2 weeks, they’ve been attending a swimming camp.

Of the bunch, the swim camp has been the biggest pain because it’s an hour in the middle of the day in a remote location in the next town. Every day, right after lunch. While it wasn’t all bad, it pretty much precluded much of anything else getting done during the day. In all three cases; however, the kids were ready for the camp to end. Regardless of whether they enjoyed it, it’s an intrusion on their time and they’ll only tolerate it so far.

But today was the final day of the camp, which means the kids can return to their normal bickering over what cartoon to watch on Netflix in the morning. Oh, and whining that they never get to play the DS. And that they are bored.

The start of the school year seems so far away.

The boy’s enthusiasm for the game in running high. I played with him and his sister this morning and won. Shockingly, he didn’t like losing to me at all and was quick to point out that I hadn’t beat him one-on-one yet. Rationalization is the opiate of a young ego.

He then played his sister in a game later in the day and saw fit to give her all sorts of advice on what she should and shouldn’t do. After the half-dozen games he’s played, he’s already an expert. The lass has been a good sport with the game, to her credit. She isn’t quite old enough to grasp the game completely, but with a little math help she’s quite able to play.

I suppose I should also mention I downloaded the app for my Nook Tablet. The game itself is well done and all the things possible in a normal game seem to be possible in the app. Including cheating- there’s a game option that allows for 3 different “sleight of hand” moves for shorting someone on rent, gaining an extra space during game play and something else that escapes me. It’s fun to play, although I dislike the AI decision making where trades are concerned- it’s clearly skewed towards a speedy game, as opposed to making intelligent trades.

Perhaps we’ll end up with a Monopoly night or something, before it’s all over.

The one question is get asked more than any other is “Can I play my DS?” Both the boy and the lass take part in this several-times-a-day ritual.

During the school year, life was much easier regarding DS time. It was only for the weekends. That was it. Every now and again, as a treat during a snow day or some other day-off-from-school they’d be allowed to play their DS for awhile. Even that came with a penalty, since once that seal was broken they would immediately hound us the nest time a day off presented itself.

“You let us play the DS last time we had a day off, so why not this time?”

Because your presumptuousness annoys me, that’s why.

This Summer, the Wife and I have deliberately backed off of our DS regulations. We figured giving them time to do things their way was a good chance for them to decompress from the restrictions of the school year. We didn’t realize how fully they would leverage the opportunity. Dare I say, abuse the opportunity.

Everything is, of course, hunky-dory when I tell them “Yes.” The problems start when I decline to let them play.

“Why?”

What do you mean “Why?” You’ve been allowed to play it more in the last month than the entire school year combined. If it wasn’t for camp or swim lessons, it’s probably all you’d do.

“Is it because I didn’t empty the dishwasher when you asked?”

They’re searching for some kind of direct cause-and-effect. It’s annoying. It doesn’t seem to cross their minds that the only reason is a whim. That it’s been judged they’ve spent enough time in front of little screens and they should try something else like drawing, a board game, reading or something else entirely.

“But I’ve already read a comic book.”

Time for the heavy artillery: “Would you like me to take it away for the rest of the Summer?”

Pause.

“No.”

Well, then case closed.

Until the next time.