Me Being Industrious in My Own Special Way

A while back Ben's mom found his old bed frame in her parents' attic. She's been wanting us to pick it up because it actually goes with all of Henry's bedroom furniture, but we've been putting it off, mostly because we don't have a vehicle large enough to put it in. Anyway with the help of a friend and her minivan, I got it home. I had to rig it because the mattress Henry sleeps on is some weird set that for some reason is about two inches too narrow for a full size bed frame. I wasn't satisfied with the original rig, so I decided to fix that today. First, since Henry had the day off from school, we slept in late (eight is late for us now) and then since it's actually warmed up enough to go outside, after breakfast we went to the park. Everything was soaking wet from the rain last night, but it was warm and Henry had his scooter and played with some kids from a day care. On the way back home Henry and I doubled up on the scooter and rode down the sidewalk together. It was a cool ride, flying down the hill real fast, the wind blowing through our hair, underneath a beautiful, cloudless blue sky.

At the hardware store I got a bag of bird seed, potting soil, a bunch of seeds, and two 2x4s. The guy at the checkout counter let Henry scan everything and asked if I was doing a greenhouse project. I informed him that I was jerry-rigging my son's bed with the 2x4s, and yes, the other stuff was for my garden, (which I won't get to for a few months, but at least I'll have the stuff ready when I do). I had to do some quick thinking when we got to the car, because the grandpa mobile (Uncle Guzzle) is so old the back seats don't fold down. I ended up unrolling the back window and sticking them through there over the lowered passenger seat and wedging them in the floorboard beneath the dash. Then I secured the ends with a bungee, cushioned the window glass with a knit hat, and we were on our way.

At home I measured the bed frame, cut the 2x4s with a hand saw, and fixed Henry's bed. That mattress ain't going nowhere.

Wanna see? (Guess I should've properly made the bed before taking this picture. For that matter, I should've gotten Henry to clean his room a little.)


Then I got to work trying to remedy this little problem:


Yes, the old dead tree finally keeled over. I think I might have preferred if it had missed that branch and smashed part of the fence. That I could more easily fix. As it is, yeah, it makes me very nervous. Knowing that the tree is going come down no matter what, I thought I could spare the fence at least, so I hammered the two fence panels beneath the tree loose and moved them out of the way. Henry helped by hammering different parts of the fence and staying out of my way. When Ben got home I suggested that he cut the branch that the dead tree was leaning against, so he set the ladder against the beech tree to see how he might go about doing so. It's way up there, and upon closer inspection, seems to be about as thick as Ben's leg. Now we're going to make inquiries about a chainsaw.

Then at about four Henry got a phone call from one of his friends asking him to play with her at the park. So we went down there again, this time Henry rode his bike. He's still a little slow on pedaling, and on the slightest hill he needs a push, so I'm making him take his bike out as much as possible to build up those skinny legs of his. At the park we played for about and hour and then went home and made pizza.

Still on my list of things to do: a whole list of home repairs, and oh, yeah, clean the kitchen, and throw those whites in the dryer. And fold the huge pile of laundry.

Homework

Ben is helping Henry with his homework. Henry's supposed to read for twenty minutes and then write a sentence or two about his favorite character in the story.

I'm very interested in how this will turn out. I personally haven't read the story, but I saw the cover. It looks right up Henry's alley. As for predicting his favorite character, I think color may factor in which one Henry will like more. The Thing and the Hulk are both big and strong, but one of them is green. Also they don't like each other and they fight a lot. Whoever wins the fight at the end might end up being Henry's favorite.

Yes, Ben and Henry read a comic book.

I'm sitting here writing this because I want to let Ben get the full-on parental homework experience. Plus I'm dying to see what Henry had to say about it. Sitting here is like waiting for Christmas.

Oh, boy, here we go, the end product:

"Hulk and Thing like to fight. I like Hulk."

The green guy wins.

Awesome.

3 Days And...

No phone calls from teacher.

Yeah! Three days in a row Henry got a high five coming in the front door. His awesome personality + good behavior = happy mom. I think happy mom = happy kid, but sometimes I think Henry could be happy no matter what.

Getting Back into the Swing of Things

First off, the holidays were crazy busy. Last minute shopping, figuring out the schedule, making the Christmas '09 tour, dealing with both Ben and Henry twenty-four-seven for two weeks. Madness. Aside from that, it was very nice. We got to visit with family, Henry got a bike and a ton of Legos, Ben got a long reprieve from work, and I read a pile of books. Now a cold front has moved in and I've spent the greater part of the week inside where it's warm.

The start of 2010 has been interesting. Henry's been a real terror, both at church and school. His Sunday school teacher put it best: he has no impulse control. I had to teach the Sharing Time lesson in Primary, so somebody sent Henry to hang out with his dad; unfortunately Ben was teaching the priesthood lesson at the time. I think we all went home a little cranky that day.

Then Monday I got a phone call from Henry's teacher. Apparently during math time Henry decided to make a pest of himself and run around annoying kids. I took a moment to tell him to knock it off and let him know he was in trouble. His teacher attributed his behavior to re-acclimating himself to school after the long break. So I grounded Henry from games and sugar and informed him that if he behaved the next day I'd lift the ban on treats. Oh, the humanity.

I was feeling optimistic until I got another phone call the very next day at the exact same time. Henry was bothering kids during math time. I talked to him again, ordered him to obey his teacher and warned him he was in trouble again. His teacher was at a loss. So was I. In all her years of teaching little kids she'd never seen anything like Henry. He'd been pestering one of his friends while she was trying to count something or another, but she was very patiently coping with him, so Henry wasn't getting any kind of reward for being silly. After I hung up I got the impression that the remedy for Henry's behavior was a good old-fashioned smack on the arse. No treats, no games, and a spanking followed by a long talk.

We'll see how well that worked. I still have a few more hours until math time.