I love you, IU.

I haven’t followed IU sports in years.  Basketball held onto me longer than football, but even then, when I got here and found UT, I completely jumped ship and became a UT fan (hi, UT likes to win stuff). 

Until. . . UNTIL!!!  Someone who I almost never speak to called today to wager a $100 bet on Purdue.  Being the savvy woman that I am, I refused that bet because I was relatively certain that person wouldn’t have suggested it if he thought he’d lose. . . and since I haven’t followed IU or Purdue at all in recent years, I wasn’t about to make any sort of guess as to my odds.

Turns out I should’ve taken that bet. . . but I’m pretty happy with the quiet satisfaction of knowing he probably spent a good 2 hours screaming at the tv in anger.

IU, you have won my heart again.  Thank you for kicking the shit out of Purdue.  These warm fuzzies are a gift all their own.

Silly, silly Purdue fan. . . it was good to hear from you today.  I wish I had taken 100 of your dollars.

Craaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaap

Today, I started P90X.

It’s hard.

It’s gonna go in your butt. . .

Reece:  It’s gonna go in your butt.

Reece:  It’s gonna go in your butt.

Reece:  It’s gonna go in your butt.

Me:  What?

Reece:  It’s gonna go in your butt.  The spaceship’s gonna go in your butt.

This conversation occurs as I am sitting on the arm of the sofa, facing away from the boy, who is apparently attempting to stick a plastic hamburger, which he believes is a spaceship, up my butt.

I have something alive in here.

That’s probably the single best thing a kid can say to you while you’re in the confines of a moving vehicle.

“Here” was a tiny play-doh container, so the “something” couldn’t have been that big of a deal, but still.

We get into the car after daycare, and Shae says to me, with a sneaky grin on her face, “I have something alive in heeeeere” and shakes the play-doh container.  Given the size of the container,  I wasn’t terribly alarmed, but still, if you’ve got something alive in my new car, I kinda wanna know what it is RIGHT AWAY.

But, I’m a patient mom, so I play along. 

“Is it a monkey?!  A tiny, baby monkey?!  A PURPLE, tiny, baby monkey?!  I HOPE IT’S A PURPLE TINY BABY MONKEY!!!”

*child giggling*

“Noooo”. . .

Is it an animal?  No.

Is it a plant?  No.

Is it a bug?  No.

Um.  That rules out most things that are alive.

Turns out my daughter could use a lesson or two in science.  Because a lizard is too an animal.

Inside the tiny play-doh container was a tiny gecko.  She just “took his tail off” so he could fit in the container!

I’ll admit, I’m a little bit of a bleeding heart when it comes to animals. . . so I may have overreacted to the casual removal of a lizard’s tail, but seriously.  Do you want some giant walk up and just take your leg off so you can fit more conveniently into his tiny play-doh container?   Probably not.

Anyway.  Moral of the story is, if you’re going to bring home something alive from daycare in a tiny play-doh container, it better be a purple tiny baby monkey.  Otherwise, I’ll make you put it outside.

Little Boys

For the past two years, everyone has been trying to convince me that boys are so much easier to raise than girls. 

All of you jerks are LIARS.  Boys are not easier.  LIARS LIARS LIARS.

This boy is mouthy and headstrong and stubborn and LOUD.  He can throw a temper tantrum for hours (his current record is 3 solid hours) and if he wants something, he will argue and negotiate and flat out demand it until you give in or take away everything he owns.

He is undoubtedly the biggest challenge I’ve ever faced.  And, it’s such an amazing contrast because Shae is very well behaved, and she might pout for 5 minutes if she doesn’t get her way, but then she’s over it.  She rarely talks back, and she certainly doesn’t kick me. 

There are a lot of times when I wonder what the Hell I was thinking. . . how I thought I could handle this on my own and who on Earth convinced me to take this little demon boy. 

Lucky for him, he has his redeeming qualities, and for every moment of doubt I have, he provides a more resonating moment of laughter and all of the doubt melts away.

This week, the boy has twice informed me that I cannot leave the house the way I was dressed.  One day, he didn’t like my sweater and he told me to change it.  I refused, and he pouted about it all the way to school.  Another day, I was running too late to care, and I threw on black socks with brown shoes.  Reece wasn’t having any of it. 

Today, however, I threw on my turquoise, sequined tank and a white sweatsuit.  No big deal.  But, when Reece rounded the corner to my bathroom to see what was taking me so long to get ready, you’d think I was covered in lollipops and puppy dogs.  His eyes widened and he ran to throw himself into me and said, “I LOVE THIS!”. 

5 minutes later, after I’d peeled him from my body, he asked me if he can have my shirt when he’s bigger.

I don’t see why not.

Consequences

Every Friday is movie night.  Some Fridays we go out to eat first.

Tonight was one such Friday.  We piled ourselves into the fantastic new car and headed to Kerbey Lane for breakfast for dinner.  It was lovely.  Except they forgot the sour cream for my baked potato omelet and the sour cream is pretty much what makes the baked potato omelet, but whatever.

As we were leaving, a tow truck was in the parking lot, getting ready to tow a big van that had just been in an accident.  There were flashing lights and policemen.  As we walked to the car, we saw the car the van had obviously hit.  A policeman was taking a look with his flashlight and we stopped to stare for a minute before we made our way to our car.

A few feet from the car, Reece decided he no longer needed to hold my hand or walk slowly and he took off.  I very sternly requested that he stop, and he refused.  When I caught up to him, he said, “Ha ha!  I beat you!” and I said, “NO SIR, that was NOT APPROPRIATE” and he said, “NU HUH” and yanked his hand away again. 

I did what any rational mother would do, I said, “Do you want me to go tell the policemen that you aren’t behaving?”.

To which, he responded, in a very loud screaming voice, “NO!  I DON’T WANT TO GO TO JAIL!” . . . and because he was being so loud, his sister had to shout over him to make sure I heard her when she said, “Yeah, like daddy!”.

It was pretty awesome.  Mostly because there were at least two dozen people within ear shot.

The significance of this will be lost on most of you.

My daughter is very sensitive.  Her feelings are easily hurt, and much unlike her brother, she does not like being laughed at.  If someone looks at her funny, it’s not unlike her to cry.

The other day, on the way home from daycare, during our usual routine where I ask each of the kids what the worst and best parts of their day were. . . Shae told me that she had a really bad day. 

Naturally, I asked her why her day was so bad.  She said she didn’t want to tell me. 

So, what do you do?  Do you prod?  Do you let it go and figure she’ll tell you later if she wants to talk about it?  Do you tell her that you, too, had a bad day?

I told her that she didn’t have to tell me, which prompted her to spill it.

Apparently, a boy in her class pushed her because she was walking too slowly.  She told him he shouldn’t push because it’s not nice.  He mocked her and shoved his way past her.  That made her cry. 

DON’T EVER CRY IN FRONT OF A BULLY!

That, of course, made him mock her more.  She told him that he was hurting her feelings, and he laughed at her.

That ruined the entire rest of her day.

Unfortunately, there’s not much I can do about it. . . but I can’t tell her that.  So I ask her for the boy’s name.

His name is. . . Antonio.

ANTONIO!

Therein lies the problem.

She has been strongly advised to avoid the company of any and all boys named Antonio from now on.  And, I think that’s a sensible piece of advice for anyone, really.