Me cat, Dori. I think she may need to go on a diet. Not sure why she's so fat. As often as she pukes up her food one would think she'd be a trifle less endowed with lard.

Henry aka Skeletor. The skeleton with a heart.

Henry and his kite. Pay no attention to that pile of laundry on the couch.

I Got Nothing

It's true. I've nothing really to say. Today I sanded and spackled the bathroom walls, ripped off a huge chunk of that ugly wallpaper. Cleaned the kitchen, did some laundry, cleaned out that grout bucket that's been sitting in the bathtub all week. Boy, was I in rare form today. Whilst (I love saying whilst) I was engaged in domestic duties, Henry was occupying the recliner and catching up on a week's worth of PBS cartoons. After a while he left the TV to ask me to help him build a kite. So we built a kite out of some newsprint and a couple sticks I broke of a bush growing next to the deck. Then Henry wanted to fly it. There was absolutely no way that thing was going to fly; even if there had been a trace of wind, the twigs were probably too heavy, the tape to flimsy to hold it together, the thread (applied for aesthetic value only) wouldn't have held up. I indulged him anyway and ran around the back yard with the kite pathetically flopping beside me. Henry thought it was cool, though, and had to have a turn. When we went to Mee Maw and Pee Paw's to go swimming he insisted on bringing the kite to show it off. But then when we got there he changed his mind and left it in the car.

We've gotten some rain and a few cool nights, so the pool water had dropped back down to seventy eight. Too cold for me. I dipped my feet and watched Henry frolic. When we got home Henry wanted to color some more and decided to make a skeleton suit. Not sure where he got the idea, maybe from whatever inspired him to make the kite. I made him a skeleton suit with some more newsprint and he was happy. Then he taped the skeleton to his door and requested that I invite one of his friends over so he could scare her with it. By then it was too late for a play date, so he was a little disappointed. Then he made two "brothers" out of paper. He was really Mr. Creative today.

Well, that's it. Hope I didn't bore anyone into a coma.

More Weekend Fun

Saturday morning we got up early. Henry was still snoozing so I had to wake him. I almost never have to wake him up, and when I do it's usually because we have to be somewhere before nine thirty. And of course on those days he decides to sleep in. Anyway, Henry looks up groggily and asks where we're going. Nowhere, I just wanted to make you get up early for no reason like you do to me all the time. Not really. I reminded him that we were going to Grandma and Papaw's house and he hopped right up out of bed like that sick guy Joseph Smith gave a blessing to.

We got to Mom and Dad's around nine thirty and there on the table was a big batch of biscuits Mom had just made, which was nice because we'd neglected breakfast in our haste to get there early. After breakfast Ben and Dad went off to tear down an old tobacco barn. Dad wants to build a log cabin so when people come to camp and stuff they don't have to go all the way back to the house to use the bathroom. I guess Dad could just build an outhouse or something, but he likes to dream big.

While the men went off to do manly stuff, Henry and I hung out with Mom. We were a little disappointed that Beth's kids weren't there, as Henry had no one to play with, but he was able to make due with me, and was happy to require me to push him endlessly on the swing. Luckily before too long Mom asked us to go to the store with her and Uncle Dave so I got out of swing duty. We went to Asheboro, a thirty minute drive, and picked up some printer ink so I could copy some more family photos at Mom and Dad's expense (thanks Mom and Dad!) and then went to the super Wal-mart. While shopping Dad called Mom and said Beth was trying to reach her. In the process of trying to call Beth on her cell phone, Mom accidentally called Aunt Liz and then realized after several tries that Beth wasn't answering the phone because she was dialing her old number, so she had to call Maggie to get her new one, and Maggie had to call her back. Then we had to hurry back because Beth needed us to watch the kids for her.

While we were finishing our shopping, Henry saw a man in a wheel chair and asked in his loudest voice, "Why does he have a wheelchair?"

My attempt to quiet Henry and discreetly give him the "some people need wheelchairs speech" failed big time and the lady accompanying the man in the wheelchair explained to Henry that someone had hit the man in the back of the head with a big stick so he couldn't move anymore.

Dang, what do you say to that? "Oh, no. I'm so sorry to hear that," was the first thing that came to mind so I went ahead and said it. I felt really bad for the guy, but was glad he had someone to take care of him.

When we got back to Mom and Dad's Henry got to play with his cousins and I got a break. Then Ben and Dad got home, both completely filthy. Ben told me about their adventures in tobacco barn demolition while I helped him disinfect a cut and a broken blister on his hand. Made me glad I stayed with Henry instead of leaving him with Mom and trying to help them with the Barn. First they had to drop off some trash at the waste/recycling collection center down the road. Ben said as he was unloading the trash bags this reeking yellow slime oozed out of the bottom of the bag all over his hand. He just managed not to vomit from the smell and quickly looked around for something to get the stuff off with and the only thing in sight was a can of soda. So he used that. Then he saw there was hand sanitizer there, so he used that. His hand still reeked so when they got to the barn he rubbed dirt on his hand to try to rub the stink off. That didn't work either.

The tobacco barn was eighteen feet tall and they had to climb up from inside on these old bars of wood used for hanging the tobacco. That would have been my stopping point. Bendy old wood is not something I'm willing to trust my weight on. Nor would I have been able to climb up eighteen feet. Dad climbed through a hole in the roof, but Ben had to make his own by smashing through with a crowbar. They got the old tin roof off and decided that was enough for the day. Ben washed his hands a lot when they got back. I asked him if it still stank (I wasn't willing to sniff for myself) and he said a little. Ben hadn't the foresight to bring a change of clothes. When we went out to eat Dad loaned him the only shirt that would fit him, a hideously loud yellow Hawaiian-style shirt. Beth told me to lose it because, "he wears it when we go out to eat!" I think I'll return it though.

After dinner we let the kids play in a park a while and then went home, and during the ride home Zejda drew everyone pictures, including one she gave Henry of a poopy-pants gingerbread man, which Henry thought was hilarious. I'm going to save it and reintroduce it to her at a family gathering when she's about sixteen. That'll make her day. :) We made homemade ice cream when we got back. By the time it was done it was eight p.m., so I fixed us some to go and we said our goodbyes. We decided to follow Dad's advice and try a new route home through the back roads. Everything was great until we hit a road closed "except to local traffic" sign. Ben drove on to see if we could get through anyway, but it was getting pretty dark by then so we couldn't tell if the road was passable. The detour added about twenty minutes to the trip, but we still got home the same time that we would have if we'd gone our normal route. It had been a nice drive, despite the detour. The farms were all foggy as the sun was setting and we got to see what looked like an old textile mill ruin on a river (not sure if it was the Deep River or the Haw). Plus I reminded Ben that even though we'd had to drive a little more, we didn't have to go through Siler City, a town through which you had to drive and endure multiple stop lights, slowpokes, and cars yanking out in front of you. So we'll probably go that way from now on, and hopefully the road will be fixed before long.

Almost done. Hopefully by the end of the week.

Me laying tile. Kind of wish I didn't have that zombie eye thing going on. But hey, it's a photo of me not sitting on the couch reading a book.

The old floor. Well not really. I forgot to take a picture of the floor before we ripped it up, so I took a picture of the upstairs bathroom floor. But it's the same ugly yellow stuff. Just imagine it peeling away from the tub and a cigarette burn in it and you get the idea. Plus the floor squeaked. Made me crazy.

Some Dreams Actually Come to Fruition

OK, so we finally got started on the horrendously hideous master bath. A leaking toilet is almost never anyone's idea of a blessing, yet it was mine in this case, because I was able to convince Ben to let me redo the floor before we put a new wax seal on the bottom of the toilet. I've been wanting to tile the floor ever since we moved in back in 2002. But Ben has been doing his best to thwart any and all attempts at home improvement. Whenever I mention that something needs fixing or that I'd like to replace a floor or that I hate the ugly vinyl flooring in the bathrooms or that the kitchen is in every way an abomination, Ben's eyes glaze over. Well, this time I won, or rather Ben saw things my way. My awesome parents came by Saturday while my awesome mother-in-law watched Henry and we got to work. The toilet removal was kind of gross, but it was very satisfying ripping up the old flooring. Bye bye ugly fake yellow tile. Dad got us off in the right direction and we got the floor prepped Saturday, the tile laid Monday, and today we grouted. Ben discovered that sometime between last night and this afternoon the threshold thingy (forgot what you call it), had been bumped somehow so it was slightly crooked. I was ticked for a few minutes. Stupid dumb luck. Oh, well. I got over it. Sometime in the near future we have to do the tile trim and paint while the toilet is out of the way. An old piece of wallpaper behind the toilet makes me try to imagine the house when it was new and I wonder how people walked into the bathroom without vomiting from the visual assault of indescribably incompatible decor styles. I can't say that I know of anyone who would ever think that green, blue and gold striped wallpaper went well with a yellow floor. Even I don't have that bad of taste.

Today Henry and I went for a play date with a friend of mine. I was her trainer when we were missionaries at Temple Square and we became good friends. When I came home from the mission I figured I'd never see her again, but then through some happy coincidence she now lives fifteen minutes away and our kids really like each other, so all the more reason to hang out. We were there pretty much all day, had lunch, went swimming, then Henry cut his head open on the banister. Kyna was impressed by my calm handling of the situation, but I told her it was nothing compared to his Old Navy head wound. Then it was time to leave and Henry was not happy. So we rode home in our hot un-airconditioned car and I helped Ben grout the bathroom floor. Fixing the a.c. in the car would be nice, but I better focus on one project at a time...

I'm a Mur-diddley-urdler!

Right now there's a big forest fire burning up stuff in the counties over by the beach, or down east as some people like to say. Since the wind shifted and is coming in off the ocean, all that lovely smoke has wafted this way. I'm not sure if it was the smoke or the air blowing in off the water that cooled things down to 85, but either way, I'm happy. Plus I kind of like the woodsmoke smell; it reminds me of campfires and that wood stove we had when I was a kid. The haze was kind of gross, though. To think I spent all afternoon swimming with Henry in that. Hopefully we didn't suck in too many carcinogens. The plus side to the haze is that even though I forgot sunblock, I didn't get sunburned.

Ben went directly to his grandparents' place right after work, changed into his bathing suit and commenced to washing his car. This was a rare event indeed. The last time Ben's car got washed was probably... Ok, I forgot, it's been so long. And I was the one who washed it. When Ben was finished he was rinsing the washcloth he'd used and I noticed that the blackish gray washcloth was slowly turning pink. Ah, filth. One more reason why I want to chop down that tree over the driveway.

While Ben was washing the car I was wandering aimlessly as I am wont to do (I love saying "as I am wont to do." Sounds like I know what the heck I'm talking about.) and happened to notice a bird's nest built into an old tennis shoe perched upon a ladder which was leaning against the carport wall.

"Oh, look," I said. "There's a bird nest in this shoe."

Henry came up to see and I went in for a closer look. I figured it was an old nest, as there's no telling how long those shoes have been sitting on that ladder, and for what purpose I have no idea. I had to stand on tiptoe to see and right as I was just about to see over the rim of the nest, a bird flew out of it right into my face, missing me by inches. I'm not sure if it was me or the bird, but somehow the shoe fell off the ladder. I mean, it was a tennis shoe sitting on a ladder; it's not like it was nailed in place. At any rate, two little eggs got broken in the process. I put the shoe back in place thinking that if the bird came back it could probably lay some more eggs.

When Pee-Paw (Ben's grandpa) got home with the groceries Henry told him that mommy had killed the baby bird.

I didn't feel so bad after he told me that the bird had startled him before, as well.

I think this officially makes me a bird murderer. The eggs. The two birds smacking into my death-window. Those two birds I had to scrape off the grill of my car with a rolled-up newspaper.

Maybe I should put some more bird seed in the feeder or something.

Hurrah for Summer

Joy School is officially over for the summer. Last Saturday we held a Joy School graduation at the park. Henry got his diploma and posed for a photo, but he's going to do Joy School again in the fall since he doesn't start Kindergarten until 2009. Ah, the joy of sweating to death at ten in the morning...

Lately it's been hotter than heck around here, around 100, so we've been hiding in the house a lot. We took Henry swimming on Saturday but the pool water was only 76 degrees, so after an hour I was done. Henry was not happy at all. This year he's tall enough to touch bottom and was having a blast hopping around whilst he slowly turned blue. Since I couldn't swim around to keep warm (ironic, when it was almost 100) because I had to be Miss Vigilant to keep my kid from drowning himself, I had to put an end to it. Today when we went for another swim after a 100 plus weekend, the pool was a lot warmer. Henry got to splash around all afternoon and we had an hour off to eat and for me to recuperate from lifeguarding. Not a job I'm much suited for; the constant paying attention wears me out.

I had a fun-filled evening cleaning wax out of Henry's left ear. He'd been picking at his ear alot and so I got a flashlight and saw that a giant glob of wax had nearly sealed off his ear canal. I got a bottle of Debrox and dropped some in his ear and let it fester a while. Then after about four hundred squirts of water with a bulb syringe I got that nasty clot out. Henry was very cooperative and even offered squirt my ears for me. Unfortunately I had to decline his offer. Awww...

I got a video clip of Henry's entertaining Joy School talent show entry:




Well, that's all folks.

Fun Around the House

Last Saturday we helped Ben's grandparents uncover their pool. This involves quite a bit of work if there are leaves and water on top of the tarp. But they had a couple trees cut down last fall so there weren't too many acorns to clean out like in year previous. But there were plenty of slugs and stuff under the tarp. And the water was a lovely shade of greenish brown. No dead animals floating in it this year, though. Henry wanted to go swimming that same day and didn't care that the water was disgusting and only sixty eight degrees. I really had to put my foot down on that one. Then I saw a baby snake curled up on the sidewalk beside the pool. Ben said it was venomous because it's head was bigger that its body. So I had to kill it with a shovel because Ben was a little squeamish. I hate having to kill things, especially snakes, but it's not too difficult if I steel myself for it. Then I feel terrible afterwards.

Then there are those dumb birds that fly into our back picture window. Most of the time we hear a smack and the bird gets up and flies off, leaving a few downy feathers stuck to the glass to mark the spot where they hit. But so far two birds have killed themselves. The last one was a cardinal. Henry and I looked out the window and the poor thing was sprawled out on the deck steps, his little legs twitching a little. Ben made sure it was dead and then buried it. I think i'm going to make a cardboard cut out of some big bird of prey and tape it up in the window to keep the kamikaze death-wish birds away.

On Sunday Ben noticed the kitchen sink faucet was dripping. So he tried shutting off the water to the sink except the cold water wouldn't turn off all the way so I pushed the handle all the way to the hot water side and it stopped. Then next day we got a faucet fixing kit and a new wax seal for the toilet in our bathroom which was leaking slightly from the bottom. The kitchen sink is fine now; after Ben's fantastic fit of rage he finally got the faucet reassembled. It's funny to watch him at work on handyman kinds of jobs. Usually at some point he loses it, bellowing ape-like screeches, flailing his arms about. Well, it's not quite that bad, but I still get a kick out of it. Then I pat him on the back and tell him to let me have a try and either I fix the problem or he has another go at it when he's calmer and everything works out. The toilet is still not fixed, though. Id' like to see if my dad can come over and help with that one, especially since I'd really like to get the floor replaced at the same time (the vinyl flooring is peeling up, and it's super ugly, plus the floor squeaks and it's making me crazy). Then after that there's only a million more things that have to be fixed, replaced, refurbished, etc. That's what happens when you buy a fixer-upper. Oh, well.

The other day it was raining cats and dogs so I took Henry to see a giant model train display at one of the old malls in town. It conveniently located next to a DMV, Burlington Coat Factory, and a model train store. So of course we had to go in the store and look at stuff. Then I got him out of there and went to the BCF to kill time until the rain slacked off a little. We went over to look at shoes because Henry's sandals from last year were completely trashed. Water was leaking from the ceiling onto one of the shoe shelves, so I helped a lady, a customer, move the shoes out of the drip zone because none of the people who worked there seemed to care. Henry was adamant that he get flip-flops because his cousin Maddox has flip-flops so of course they didn't have any flip-flops that fit him. (Wow, that last sentence was like something out of a Dr. Seuss book.) So we walked around a little more looking at church clothes (poor Henry) and then he found a Spiderman baseball cap he had to have. I almost never buy him stuff on a whim, but was cheap, so I got it for him. At least when we left it kept the rain off his head. Henry's not really a hat person, but he's been wearing the hat to the park and stuff, mostly because I remind him so that he'll get some use out of it and I'll feel justified in parting with six bucks.

After we bought the hat we went to the other mall, the real mall actually, to look for some flip-flops. We went in several shoe stores but no flip-flops. I was starting to wonder if flip-flops were fashion faux pas now, but then we walked by a children's clothing store and there was a huge rack of them on the wall. Three bucks later I was feeling quite proud of myself for being a frugal shopper and so I bought us a pretzel. Henry wanted another one, but I told him I'd make some when we got home. Then when we got home I made pretzels and we had a kind of German meal that night with potatoes and kielbasa. Henry had surprised the crap out of us the other day when we had the missionaries over for dinner and he actually tried everything I put on his plate: meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. Shocker. Usually if it ain't cheese sandwich, pizza, cheeseburger or some sort of bread or pasta he's not touching it. So when Henry tried the kielbasa and potatoes I was pleasantly surprised. Hopefully this is the advent of a new and exciting era of pleasant dinnertime experiences. At any rate, by the end of the evening Henry had finished off all the pretzels.

When we went to the park on Monday Henry insisted on wearing his flip-flops, which I didn't think was such a great idea because he can't run in them without tripping. To prove it to Ben I told Henry to run across the living room in his new shoes and he biffed it every time (I'm evil, I know). I let him wear his new shoes and we made it halfway down the hill to the park when Henry tripped and skinned his knee. He was pretty cool about it, no crying or anything, and he let me clean it off with hand sanitizer. For some reason because I put band aids on it he thought no one was supposed to see his blood. We went to the park again today and he fell again and scraped his other knee. Poor kid. He's completely oblivious to cuts and scabs. Hopefully he won't be too scarred and maimed before he reaches adulthood.

Weekend Excursion

The Check Engine light came on in my car again. At least this time it had the charity to not come on right as the inspection sticker expired (like it did last year). So I had the opportunity to wait a couple weeks before I took in it for an oil change. It was the same problem as last time: a faulty oxygen sensor. Luckily the one we just replaced was under warranty so we didn't have to fork over another large chunk of change to have them replace it. Which really ticks me off because the freaking most expensive sensor costs a little over a hundred bucks online. Maybe I ought to take an auto mechanics course, then I can rip people off for hundreds of dollars in labor.

Next time that light comes on I'm going to disconnect it.

Maggie called and told me that she and Beth and all the kids were going to Mom and Dad's on Saturday and there was going to be a potluck cookout there as well. Happily the car got fixed in the nick of time so we were able to go. Papaw's house is Henry's absolute favorite place. They have a pond with ducks and kayaks, a giant tree with enough swings in it for every grandkid, trails through the woods, and best of all, cousins right down the road. After the cookout Ben and I set up a tent and we spent the night with Henry beside the pond.

Before we left I asked Henry if he needed to use the bathroom. He said no. Then after we got settled in our sleeping bags came the inevitable, "I have to pee."

"Go outside and pee in the woods."

Henry took about two steps from the tent.

"No, over by the woods."

Finally Ben shined the flashlight on a spot far enough away from the tent and told him to pee on the light.

Then as he's peeing he asks, "What's that smoke?"

"It's steam," Ben answers.

For at least a half hour after we laid down Henry kept asking a million questions.

"What's that sound?"

"Frogs."

"What's that sound?"

"Bullfrogs."

"What's that sound?"

"Crickets."

"What's that sound?"

"Barking dogs."

"What's that sound?"

"An owl."

"What's that sound?"

"Daddy snoring."

After Henry fell asleep I laid awake awhile. It seemed the frogs and crickets and dogs and owl were going to keep it up all night. Especially the dogs. I figured that some puppies must have gotten stolen or something because the twilight bark went on and on and on. Either that or a raccoon was taunting them from a tree. Finally I fell asleep and woke at dawn to an alarm of a million chirping birds, frogs, bull frogs, and the twelve dozen roosters at the chicken farm across the road.

I love camping. It's so easy for me to get up in the morning. I went back to the house with Henry for breakfast. Then we all got ready and then went to church. At church there was a family who used to be in our ward in Cary. I asked Mom if they had moved into the ward but she didn't know. Turns out they were just visiting. They told us they'd just seen a couple that reminded them of us, a tall guy and a short dark haired chick (we actually met that couple at the cookout) and said to each other, "Wow, they look like the Tilleys," and then we walked in right after. It is weird finding out you have doppelgangers out there. I have a feeling we're the evil version, though.

Henry, true to form, screeched bloody murder when it was time to go home. The good side to having to listen to Henry scream, "I don't want to go!" four million times is that it wears him out so well he sleeps for the rest of the ride home. Unfortunately when he woke upon our arrival home, he remembered quite well that he hadn't wanted to leave Papaw's house and commenced pitching another fit.

Good times.

Return of the Little Brown Bat

Last year while perusing the attic for some item or another, I happened to look up at the screen that covers the gable and noticed a tiny resident nestled up under a ventilation slat. A Little Brown Bat, from what I could tell from pictures on the internet. This photo is from the internet; I have never had even the slightest interest in touching it, let alone get my picture taken with it. I pretty much left it alone because it couldn't get into the attic because of the screen and I figured maybe it would help keep down the mosquitoes and other undesirable bugs that plague this area. Then that winter he took off and I forgot about him. Today as I was fetching a tape measure off the shelf next to the attic gable, I saw that the little bat was back. Henry came in behind me and I showed him the bat but didn't let him get near it. I pointed it out with a screwdriver because he was a little hard to see. I gently poked the screen with the screwdriver to see if the bat would move and it peed it little bit. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence or if I scared the pee out of it. At any rate, I was grossed out and got the tape measure and left.

When Ben got home I remembered the bat and reported it's return to the attic and described the peeing incident. Then Ben got dead serious and said I can catch rabies from it's pee. That made me laugh out loud big time. Then Ben got on the internet and found evidence that called his theory bunk, thank goodness. Not that the pee even got near me or the screwdriver. We looked in the attic but the bat was gone, so hopefully it really did get scared and won't be coming back. I guess we could stick a fan up there and that'd do the trick. Maggie told me one time that Dad found a bat hanging around the porch and laced into it with a can of Raid bug spray and then squashed it with a rock. Even though I was horrified by the brutality of its death, it still made me laugh to think of Dad hosing a bat with a can of Raid. He's very resourceful.

Yesterday I had fun chopping weeds and saplings with hedge clippers. The neighbors next door are selling their house and I didn't want prospective buyers to think we're slobs. It may be true, but they don't really need to know that just yet. The side of our yard slopes down really bad towards the neighbor's property such that you can't safely mow it, hence it's allowed to go natural, being full of trees and bushes so there are always saplings and stuff coming up all over the place. As I was grooming the jungle between our houses I happened to look up and came face to face with a huge poison ivy vine hanging down from the tree. I backed away and went inside and washed up. Last thing I need is a poison ivy rash.

Now that I think of it, I have taken a few crazy risks this week. I mean, I was cutting weeds in shorts, right next to a pile of sticks and tree limbs that could've been full of snakes, I poked a bat, well a screen next to a bat, I taught Henry the rules of Uno. I guess that last one wasn't so risky, but it did try my patience.

Revolting Saga

Here's a nauseating tale:

Ben's been battling an on and off again sore throat for like three weeks now. Ignoring my advice, he decided to forgo a doctor's visit in the name of saving a buck.

"What if you have strep?" I ask.

He looks at me dismissively. His classic line of thinking, "The doctor will look at me and say it's a virus and charge a hundred bucks, while I can sit at home and wait out the illness for free."

Even though this had already been going on for two weeks, he kept up his stubborn stance until Wednesday at work when it really started hurting. The doctor gave him a prescription for some stuff people take for allergies, which I thought was weird because every throat problem I've had has been quickly taken care of by an antibiotic. Anyway, to make a long story short, I had to take Ben to an Ear Nose and Throat specialist today, mainly because his esophagus quit working and he started coughing up pus, and oh yes, blood. Yum. The ENT doctor had to run a tube down Ben's nose into his throat. Diagnosis: Acute Trachyitis. He got two shots in his butt and has to take four massive horse pills a day to kill the infection. Poor Ben. It doesn't help that the medicine the first doctor prescribed gave him a rash.

Hopefully this disgusting/painful experience will convince Ben to take his health more seriously in the future.

My Kid, the Comedian

Last time I had to teach Joy School the kids and I sat around the dining room table eating our "unique" snack to go along with the lesson, which consisted of a last minute scrounge of cheerios, raisins, goldfish crackers, chocolate chips and a bag of microwave popcorn. The kids, all six of them including Henry, as they are often inclined to do during moments of calm, engaged in telling knock-knock jokes:

Knock, Knock.

Who's there?

Tommy.

Tommy who?

Tommy Chocolate Chip.

Hahhhh hah hah haaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

I smile indulgently. "You guys are funny."

You gotta love kids.

Henry has decided that he really likes the movie "Tommy Boy." Chris Farley cracks him up. The other night while Ben was out with the missionaries Henry asked to watch it so I put it on and started on a crossword. Then a while later Henry said he was hungry and asked for a slice of bread. I said okay and he brought the bread sack for me to undo the twist tie for him. As I was opening the bag a sudden premonition struck me and I handed him the end piece, which almost never gets eaten in this household unless we're completely out of everything else.

"Eat this at the table," I said. "You have to eat it all gone."

Sure enough, about two seconds later I hear Henry in the dining room, "Oohhh! I killed it! I killed my little friend!" He comes triumphantly into the living room with his ripped up bread, grinning like he knows he's the funniest kid on the planet.

This after he sang the Darth Vader/Imperial march for the Joy School talent show. I should have sent him to Joy School that morning with a piece of bread and he could have done the Tommy Boy impression instead.

Retraction

All right, I've been called down for saying I never saw my dad do housework when I was a kid. I really should have said I didn't remember seeing my dad do housework.

Mom asked me, "Don't you remember that time when I was in Gatlinburg for a month and you stayed home with your dad?"

Um, apparently not.

My sister called and said Dad had just finished doing a load of laundry when he sat down and read my blog. In my own defense, I never said Dad didn't do housework.

Sorry, Dad. You're awesome!

But don't think this is going to make me want to run to the kitchen and do the dishes.

Bored Ramblings

I have a copy of a photo on the shelf above my computer that I got from my mom of my great-great grandfather, Charlie Gale, and his mother, Sarah Hoak, taken in Indiana sometime around 1870 when Charlie was a year or two old. It's a cute photo, a cheek to cheek pose, Charlie sitting on the arm of Sarah's chair, her arm wrapped protectively around him (presumably to keep him from falling off). I would post it here, but my stupid scanner broke-- well, stupid me, that's what I get for not paying attention and plugging in the wrong power cord... Anyway, It's the typical old-timey photo where no one smiles. Charlie took it to the extreme with a big pouting frown. It's really cute because he had such chubby cheeks.

Henry saw it one day and asked me why the baby was sad.

"Because his mommy made him get all cleaned up and dressed up in a suit and made him be quiet and sit very still so they could get their picture taken together."

I like this photo a lot. Not just because I'm named after these people (I'm a Sarah, too, and my middle name is Gale: my grandma's maiden name). I like its clarity, that you can see the little details of their homemade clothes, the buttons and tassels on Sarah's dress, Charlie's stripy socks and beat up shoes. I look at the photo and wonder how long it took Charlie to sit still, whether or not he pitched at fit, what they did after the picture was taken. I wonder a lot about Charlie's father. I have no photo of him, just a name on Charlie's death certificate.

I have two other photos of Charlie, one as a young man, bald and mustachioed, and as an old man, a little chubbier, sans mustache, even more bald. The young man photo looks eerily like my uncle Doug.

I like photos because I can stare at the people in them without them getting frightened and starting to think I'm a psycho.

Henry just asked me, "What's die-able sores?"

It took me just a moment. Usually I have to run a mental review of everything Henry's seen or heard over the past week to figure out what he's talking about. But I remembered this one pretty quick. Because Henry likes to watch a certain Power Puff Girls DVD over and over again.

"You mean 'diabological spores', Henry."

"Yeah, die-able sores."

I had to remind him that the evil broccoloid army invaded earth and were surprised when the kids didn't get hypno-zapped like their parents and Blossom says, "Cause we didn't eat none of your diabological spores!"

I had hoped that that episode would help Henry eat his vegetables, but no luck so far.

Finally a Beautiful Weekend

Yes, it's finally a sunny, beautiful Saturday morning. After weeks of beautiful week days followed by rainy weekends (not complaining, we really need the rain) . Ben's been complaining about that lately since he's stuck at work when it's nice and then when he's not it's raining. Well, he's sick today, so I guess that's what he gets for complaining.

I ought to realize how futile it is to complain. Because I already know in advance that things are going to snag, my expectations will not be met, something will go wrong, and I'll feel guilty because I read a book instead of folding laundry. But that's okay. The little snags in life keep me on my toes and help me build up patience, which I'm running low on. Like when I try on a pair of jeans at the mall and everything appears great and I buy them, only to have them magically grow a size too large after I've washed them and can't return them.

Henry surprised me by being nice for my dental appointment, yesterday. The last time Ben was in for a cleaning we took Henry along, so he'll be acclimated when it's time for him to get a real check up. I gave him a good talking to yesterday before I took him with me to the dentist's, hoping he'd remember the lecture and behave. Which he did for the most part. I only had to tell him to stop touching the x-ray machine twice. The hygienist and dentist are both really cool, which made things easier for a lone mom with a very active little boy. Then of course, he picked out a toy with lip gloss inside and promptly applied it all over his body.

Then that night, because I was letting my happiness at his good behavior overcome all rational thought, I let Henry drink a root beer when we ate out. Yes, I'm a moron. Soda, or "liquid candy" as I like to call it, has a similar effect upon Henry as gasoline does on a grease fire. Under normal circumstances he's revving up into hyper psycho mode by seven thirty every night; it's a completely normal event to have him bouncing off the walls right before bed time. Last night, he went into overdrive and switched on his nitro boosters. I did not pick him up by his head and hurl him into bed like a football, but he was so high on sugar I'm not sure he would have noticed if I had.

This morning I awoke happily untainted by Ben's plague. I hooked Henry up with breakfast, video games and cartoons, and left him with his sick father while I went to the doctors for some lab work. I'd been there a few times before but never on a weekend. Apparently on the weekends you get completely ignored after following proper procedure. According to the sign posted on the wall you sign in, press the button and sit down, and a person will call for you "shortly". I sat and killed time reading a newspaper and looked at my watch and it had been like forty five minutes. I knew I wasn't overlooked because an office worker looked at me like ten times and confirmed I was in for lab work. A sign on the wall told me not to get pissy if every person in the room, including those who came in a half an hour later than I, was seen before me because a lot of different testing took place at that facility. But I was pissy anyway and went up to the counter and made my presence known to a woman occupied with paperwork.

Me: "Hey, I've been sitting her for forty five minutes and haven't been seen yet. What's your definition of 'shortly'?"

Her: "You haven't been seen yet?"

Me: "I'm still standing here, ain't I?"

Of course, being the complete wimp I am, I was really much more polite. And to credit them, it was only about ten more seconds before I was seen. Then my freaking veins wouldn't cooperate. They're dinky and like to roll around a lot, so the guy missed on the first stab. Got to love those fruitless punctures. Then he switched to my other arm and my arm jerked because it for some reason hurt like hell and in consequence the needle pulled out of the vein and he spent a few minutes getting it to stop bleeding. He flunked out apparently, and another nurse had to have a go at it. Luckily she, using a smaller needle, was successful on the first stab back on the elusive vein because I was starting to get a little queasy. Then I got to drive myself home with two sore arms instead of one.

Life. Don't talk to me about life. Hey, Marvin, I feel for ya.

Ben, not so grizzly anymore. As the first buds of spring open and blossom, Ben sheds his woolly cocoon and emerges a full five years younger. Too bad shaving my head would only make me look like a freak.