we just want to be free to ride our bikes and not be hassled by the man!

so wingman got a new "big boy" bike and the duke has learned to ride his bike without training wheels...

the weather has been just gorgeous, so needless to say they have been on their bikes as much as they can...they were out in the cold and fog at 6:30 yesterday morning and basically when we are home have only come in to eat since...(well, and to have school...but you'd be amazed at how quickly that goes when the open road is calling you!)...

since my mind has been made up of cobwebs as of late, i have spent a great deal of time sitting on the porch listening to wingman singing his made up songs while he rides his bike, and watching the duke enjoy another rite of passage...

i'll be back when the cobwebs are blown free...

x.

that's the way...of the world...

wow, i completely spaced yesterday's post...must be due to hello anxiety, my old friend...

when anxiety hits, i have learned;

that i shouldn't handle anything breakable...

two cups and a plate bit the dust this time so far...like my hands are greased!...

when anxiety hits and you can't quit the shallow breathing i have learned;

do the dishes by hand...the warm water will soothe you and the scent of the dishwater will remind you of something else...(for some reason it always reminds me of the night before the first day of school...which wasn't always a good thing, but completely distracting nonetheless...it also reminds me of growing up with my father...which is a good thing, and completely distracting as well)...

just as long as the dishes you are doing are unbreakable...

when anxiety hits and your children aren't helping matters i have learned;

play a game...i know a game can be really really annoying under the best of circumstances, but if you pick a game you can tolerate then it will calm you and you might even have fun...

and if you beat the pants off of your seven year old son twice in a row it feels pretty good...even though he's younger than you, too bad...all's fair in fun and TAKE OFF!...

when anxiety hits and you've done all of the above and you still feel as though your insides are connected to a power plant and your breathing hasn't returned to normal i have learned;

drink...really, drink...whatever you have and in moderation...or not...gulllp...burrp...

blah...anxiety is a recurring non-friend of mine...but, we have a deal...don't get too bad and i can deal...

i also learned today that a particularly nasty canker sore is numbed quite nicely by a big old splash of ny-quil on it...

finally...

x.

oh, and if all the above fails...put on earth, wind, and fire...really loud...dance around and sing at the top of your lungs...dear lord if that doesn't do it then perhaps lithium is your next stop...

we're off to see the baby!...the beautiful baby girl!

so we are off to the emerald city to have a visit with that sweet new baby girl...

wingman insists that he is a big brother, not a cousin...i tried to explain, but apparently cousins can only be girls...and since he is not a girl, he is not a cousin...therefore, he is a big brother...

he also insists that the baby's name is fred...

but the highlight of this trip is apparently the knowledge that we will be riding a city bus...this has caused no end of excitement for the boys...a city bus...you'd think i just told them we were going to disneyland...

go figure...

anyhow, off we go, unbridled excitement and all...to ride a city bus and visit wingman's new baby sister named fred...

x.

oh, by the way those donuts didn't happen yesterday...i was right in the middle of the making when i posted (the dough has to chill three hours) and then realized too late that i had the wrong sort of canned pumpkin...big ol' bummer...BUT, tomorrow, tomorrow is the day...i'll let you know how they turn out...

welcome autumn!

autumn brings fresh home-made pumpkin donuts (made by yours truly) and the sweetest brand new baby girl cousin for the boybarians (made by lil' sis)...

equinox blessings,

x.

shiny, creepy people...

so we're at the bakery on saturday morning with jeanbean so she can buy a celebratory donut(peeing in the potty related) for wingman...

now, wingman is a boy with beautiful long curly hair and big blue eyes...well, let me amend that...some days he has beautiful long curly hair...other days that same long curly hair looks like a cross between spicoli from fast times at ridgemont high and nick nolte's mug shot...

despite the fact that he is dressed like a boy and acts very very much like a boy, he is often mistaken for a girl...which doesn't bug me, and sometimes i correct people and sometimes i don't...

so, we are in the bakery and wingman has chosen a chocolate donut the size of his head...and he is eating said donut in a fairly crowded bakery, standing next to jeanbean and i while we doctor our coffees...

i am adding cream to my coffee when i hear this loud screechy creepy voice say

"little girl!...little girl!...can i have a bite of your donut!"

and then the voice does something like a laugh...

i turn around to see this older woman bent down right in wingman's face!...she doesn't seem that old, but it's hard to say because she has long dyed black hair, bright shiny white tennis shoes that i'm pretty sure they stopped making in the late eighties, crisp blue stirrup jeans, and a brand new red sweatshirt...she's like a shiny outdated penny...

"little girl!...little girl!"

i put down the cream to get to wingman but jeanbean beats me to it and says to the woman

"um, little boy...he's a boy"

"that's a boy?...wow, look at that hair!...little boy!...little boy!...can i have a bite of your donut!"

and i kid you not her face is just right up in his!...all cackly laughing and more than creepy...i get to his side and bend down to speak to him and just be by him...

by now, she's moved on to place her order...

i wonder what in the hell it is that possesses people to think it wouldn't creep out a little kid to have someone they have never seen in their entire life be right in their face asking them for their treat!?!...i mean, can someone point out one thing that ISN'T wrong with that?...

i understand that people love little kids...and wingman is especially cherubic at times...but c'mon!...that's just creepy...if you want to interact with a young child it's best not to act like something out of a nightmare...

on another note, auntieEN lives in north carolina...i called on saturday afternoon to check on her because of the weather they were having...our conversation went like this

"hello?"

"hey auntieEN, it's me"

"oh hey girl, what's up?"

"well, i heard on the news that you guys were getting pounded pretty hard...just checking in...how are you?"

"oh, i'm good...there's really nothing going on here...but hey, i can't talk now because i'm just pulling up to the airport and i'm late for my flight"

"oh...well, where are you going?"

"tibet...so i'll call you on a layover or when i get back"

click...

well, then...

call me up on a saturday and i may have to put you off because someone just pooped and i have to deal with it or because the boybarians are being, well themselves...or just maybe you can catch me on my way to target!...

auntieEN is literally the only person i know that i can catch on the way to TIBET!...

sorry, can't talk now I AM ON MY WAY TO TIBET!

oops, gotta run i'm late for MY FLIGHT TO TIBET!

oh, i'd love to chat but it just so happens I AM ON MY WAY TO TIBET!

x.

oh, dear...

the duke of fun just purchased a risk game...

the wicked gleam in his eye is bright enough it could fry an egg on a wet sidewalk...the demonic laugh should appear shortly...

"i'm going for total world domination!"

i do believe that this just may be the beginning of the end...

x.

forecast; continues to be dry...and just may be a genius...

wingman, what a little man...

he is doing so well!...now just goes right in and uses the potty himself...always washes his hands, and judging from the continued dryness of his underwear he has mastered the "shake"...

and i know y'all are dying to know so i'll let the suspense be over...he chose spongebob squarepants underwear...it was touch and go there for awhile...bob the builder seemed to be keeping just a narrow lead on spongebob...but in the end, the squishier of the two bobs won out...

unfortunately the underwear are just a bit too snug...he wears them anyway, but i told him this weekend we'd have to go get him a larger size...to which he said

"good...din ah me ah dit da mean pongebob unnerwewah"

?...apparently there are underwear that have a mean spongebob face on them (i don't know...i'm just the driver and carrier of the wallet)...and just his luck, they are only in the larger sizes...

kids these days...he's not even allowed to watch spongebob!...the duke has seen it maybe three times in his life, and never with wingman around...yet, they love spongebob...go figure...

so today during school the duke was doing some writing and asking me how to spell various words...so then wingman pipes up and asks how do you spell car...so i spelled it out loud for him...AND HE WROTE IT ON HIS PAPER!...

so then he asks how to spell hot wheels...so again, i spelled it slowly out loud for him AND HE WROTE IT ON HIS PAPER!...he did ask me to show him w and l and s as he was writing...but then he showed me his finished effort and it was perfect!...all in a line, all the letters the same size, and a proper amount of space between the words!...

six months ago, at just a little over three years of age this kid barely spoke...and now?...well, i am very proud of him...

i e-mailed the lord of the ring at work to tell him and his response was

That is so COOL. He has obviously been biding his time to find the perfect opportunity to reveal his superior intelligence.

then i wrote

i better hide the debit card...

to which he responded

He's probably smart enough to know we don't have any money.

my boybarians...they really truly are great kids...the absolute best!...the lord of the ring and i are very lucky to have been blessed with the two of them...

x.

chop wood, carry water...

sometimes it's those repetitive and necessary tasks that provide the most welcome for uninterrupted thought...

okay, so i didn't chop wood or carry water today...but before the rain threatened to make each task decidedly grim, i collected wood from the shed to warm the house (oil doesn't get here until tomorrow)...i gathered pears from our tree for a pear custard tart for after dinner...i cut some dahlias the color of the finest merlot and coreopsis the color of perfect summer sunshine for the table...

and as i worked, the boys playing quietly and separately in the yard, i was thinking about something i had read earlier...i am reading about the history of public schools in america and had come across the following sentence...

Some say that Americans are so different that shared civic values are impossible.

and as i worked i thought about this...shared civic values?...are there *any* civic values left in america, let alone *shared* ones?...a decidedly cynical observation, but it seems to me that this country has become so polarized politically, with so much of the population mis-represented or non-represented as a result, that indeed shared civic values are indeed impossible...

but isn't that the beauty of america?...the idea that you just don't have to if you don't want to...but do personal opinion and political preference outweigh our civic duty?...the duty to at least be a contributing member in some fashion to the *greater* good...and what of the idea of "civic duty" let alone "civic values"?...more and more i see people caring less about community in general, and more about personal gain or personal survival...not surprising given the last four years...survival of the fittest has had to become the order of the day...

because it's hard to move ahead enough to pull others up and along with you when a.) because of the last four years (politically and as a result economically) you aren't moving ahead AT ALL, and b.) you can't put faith or trust in anyone offering to help guide the way because they don't know how!...and thanks to the two major political parties that dominate america, you may never find someone with whom you can both trust and elect...

welcome to america...land of opportunity and manufacturer of dreams...in america you can be whatever you want to be...but just remember, if you aren't for A or B (or ABB ;) ) then don't count on representation to support where those dreams may take you...

and how can you really contribute fully to and share civic values with a country that doesn't represent you?...and that is not a wah-wah-wah excuse/whine or a diatribe against country of my birth, because lord knows there is so much more i could be doing toward that end, just a question i pondered while getting the last of the wood into the house as the first drops began to fall...

and as i brought the pears to the kitchen sink for washing i realized that none of these are new ideas...and as with any questions of this nature *answers* are few, and really aren't answers at all...just more questions waiting to be revealed...

and something to think about as i ran down to the mailbox to pick up the mail and get back to the house before the sky opened up and the rain began to fall in ernest...

x.

sillymortalmama strikes again...and a potty tale...

we were all up quite early this morning...mainly to get the lord of the ring to the bus, but the duke was up wayyy before that, and as a result, so was i...

okay, like ten minutes before we had to, but that's TEN MINUTES I COULD HAVE USED!

it's monday, and we're tired...school started off swimmingly enough until we got to grammar...for some reason during our lesson on contractions the duke could not retain the information that the little mark that fills in for missing letters is called an apostrophe...and he already knew that...it's old hat...

so we get to the part where he's reciting back to me how to spell and write a contraction and he keeps forgetting the word "apostrophe"...

i'm getting frustrated and all of a sudden i just burst...

"it's called an apostrophe!"

and then i take the pencil and write the word in big bold letters spelling it out loud as i go, for emphasis...okay, out of pure frustration...but as a result of my totally regressive snit, it was emphasized...

i look at the duke he says okay and we move on...

that's when i noticed i spelled it wrong...apostraphe is what i wrote in big bold letters across the page so um, maturely...

sigh...

did i mention it's monday?...and i got up really really really early?...

on a brighter note, wingman is now peeing in the potty and wearing underwear!...i am thrilled and relieved!...anyone who knows me well as a parent knows that potty training has been one of the biggest "issues" for me...i know *they* always say "well don't worry, nobody ever goes to the prom in diapers!", but it was never of any relief...because when it comes to my boys and their indifference/reticence towards learning to use the potty, i would just think "well hell, by then they'd probably learn to hold it really well so they could get through the prom and just grab a diaper when they got home!"...

so to actually have two boys in underwear and successfully using the potty (well, halfway there anyway) takes a major weight off my shoulders...

he peed in the potty for the first time once on thursday night...refused the underwear and had no more to do with the potty till he went twice on sunday...then this morning when he was getting dressed he said yes to the underwear, has peed twice in the potty, and as of this moment still has dry underwear!...

see, the great thing about being a mom is that you yourself don't really have to accomplish anything!...if you let nature take it's course, milestones will be met and when you announce the completion of said milestones then it appears as if you are doing something...

brilliant, huh?...

actually, i do clean the potty afterwards, and i did have to teach wingman the little shake thing at the end (how do i even know that?), which do count as doing something, but those are far less glamorous "somethings" to be sure...and to announce them to a lot of people would be weird...don't you think?...as if i'm searching for validation for the mundane and obscure tasks i have to perform like oh i don't know FIFTY MILLION TIMES A DAY WITH NO VALIDATION FOR MY EFFORT WHATSOEVER!...WITH NO PAYCHECK! NO 401K! NO LUNCH BREAK! AND FER DAMN SURE NO CHRISTMAS BONUS!...I WANT TO GO TO THE BATHROOM BY MYSELF AND WEAR SOMETHING RESEMBLING A PUT TOGETHER OUTFIT AND NOT FEEL AS THOUGH EVERY DAY IS CASUAL FRICKIN' FRIDAY AT SOME TWO-BIT-NOTHING-BETTER-THAN-A-GARAGE-SALE THRIFT STORE!...

anyhow...

with only three pairs of underwear to his name, wingman insists that he will need more and we must pay a visit to target...TODAY!...alright, i can handle that...problem is, the last time we were there they were out of thomas the tank engine underwear, and the only other pack of underwear he was really favoring just happened to be girl's underwear...

sure, they were winnie the pooh, who is basically non-gender specific...BUT, the scalloped lace edges and bow in the front are decidedly gender specific...and while i'm an open minded sort who would actually get him the underwear he picks, i am SO not going to for one reason...years from now when he's lying on the therapist's couch while his childhood is being systematically dissected i plan on having my name come up as LITTLE as possible...

so there you have it...monday with the sillymortals...

i figure i have roughly 5, 475 days of doing this job full time left...give or take a few days...and when i switch to on-call part time, i might think about switching careers, too...maybe something in plastics...

x.

gotta love chuck!

so, we went to a play date today...

yeeeesss! i go to play dates!...

anyhow, another mama i know who homeschools and has a child soooo like the duke it's scary like to get our boys together when we can...mostly because we enjoy eachother's company, but really i suspect to assure ourselves there is indeed at least one other soul in the world who understands just exactly what it's like to live with a child like our respective sons!...

but, it's an hour and fifteen minutes away...i make the most of the distance by visiting the trader joe's near her house...

which brings me to chuck...ahhh, chuck...sip sip...

trader joe's has this wine under the label charles shaw...it used to be 1.99 a bottle (now it's 2.99) and earned the moniker "two buck chuck"...

for the price, it's actually quite good...and no not *ripple good*...better than that...i do have class...well, a bit...

so there you have it, me and chuck...havin' a night...well, and the lord of the ring...because he's the person i most like to spend an evening over cheap wine with...

ah, romance...i have come to find that romance is less atmosphere, and more the person you choose to sit beside you...

and i wouldn't share a three dollar bottle of wine with just anyone...

x.

reading rainbow...

we like to read quite a bit here at the big red house...

i would read all day if i could...the truth is, i'm a book whore...i can and will read anything...and love it (mostly)...

the duke has an affinity for reading both during his hour and a half of daily rest time, and after we read to him at bed time...

the lord of the ring manages to read and enjoy those big huge presidential biographies at the rate of about twice a year (he's so enthusiastic and interested in them, bless his heart...i have NO interest...well, if i needed a quick makeshift set of stairs to exit out of a tall window of a burning building i'd be interested!)...also, he is the go-to parent for series books before bed time...tolkein, harry potter, roald dahl, etc...

he's very very good at reading long chapters in great british accents and being very involved and patient about the whole thing...unlike someone we know, who shall remain nameless, who would rather sit on the couch and drink wine and read her own damned book...and who doesn't *do* british accents...

and wingman, well, wingman loves all books...especially thomas the tank engine stories...unfortunately, he is quite fond of a really long and hideous disney version of winnie the pooh and tigger that i CANNOT STAND!...i have no idea where it came from...and while i simply cannot abide by destroying or throwing away ANY book (well, tom robbins and gabriel garcia marquez have tempted me) the book has mysteriously *disappeared*...

so what are we reading lately...

i am reading three books presently...

little children by tom perrotta...fiction...the jury's still out on this one...it's supposed to be satire about life in the american suburbs, but thus far it falls far short of the mark...wherever that is, because i'm not sure why it is he has these characters in the situations he does...i don't think he knows either...it's thus far just not working, even from a satirical fiction point of view...reminds me of that terrible movie "american beauty"...it does not bode well...

stalking the divine by kristin ohlson...non-fiction...a woman follows the lives of women who have devoted their lives to a religious order call the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration (cloistered nuns)...it is a book that at once examines the level of faith and devotion of the Poor Clares, and the author's own exploration of faith... it is very good...

diary of a french herb garden by geraldene holt...non-fiction...so far, very good...it is the account of a woman who restores an ancient walled garden in a medieval village in southern france...witty and charming...

the duke just finished the first book of a series and has started on the second...

little wolf's book of badness
and
little wolf's diary of daring deeds, both by ian whybrow...a little wolf who is basically good is sent to his uncle's school to learn how to be bad...as in a big bad wolf...apparently it's very amusing if you're seven...

for bedtime the duke and i are just finishing up charlotte's web...of course a great book and a classic...and, i've been told i do a good "wilbur"...

the lord of the ring is currently reading;

the first american; the life and times of benjamin franklin by h.w. brands...all kidding aside, he seems very enthralled with old ben and is constantly remarking on his contribution to our world...

right now i am certain wingman is reading the "children wanted to adopt" listings in the paper as i have not yet prepared his after nap snack...

gotta go!

x.

risky business, indeed...

Dear Sliced Meat Counter Boy,

Things were going along so nicely, why'd you have to ruin it? We were having such a nice chat while you helped the woman ahead of me and I waited. At first I thought you were just being polite, but something in the way you smiled at me got me thinking, "Ho, there, this young fella's flirting with me!"

There you are, chatting me up, and all the while I'm thinking well now, I guess I'm an Interesting Older Woman. I've always wanted to be one of those. What gave me away? Was it my hip and witty repartee, or my slightly disheveled look? A look that says I am world weary, yet intriguing, and what I have seen would rock your world. (really I just didn't shower after working out, but you didn't know that)

And while your lips are moving, yammering on about something or other like you young people do, I'm thinking that if I dropped fifty pounds and found a wind machine this could be "Risky Business" right here in the middle of the grocery store. (you're probably too young to know that movie, but it was Tom Cruise before Nicole and new teeth) I was just feeling the wind in my hair when you said

"Hey, I like those glasses. I wish my mom would get a pair. Oh, here's your turkey, ma'am."

WHAT!?! Back the truck up! Let's just examine what you just said, shall we? Oh, but where to start AS THE WHOLE THING IS JUST WRONG! "my mom?" MY MOM!?! As in "you and my mom are in the same AGE GROUP AND THEREFORE I DON'T THINK OF YOU AS AN INTERESTING OLDER WOMAN BUT RATHER I THINK OF YOU AS JUST OLD", my mom?! Listen young buck, unless your mom had you when she was oh I don't know TWELVE!, then I am pretty certain we are not in the same age group. And as if that wasn't bad enough, you pretty much nailed the coffin shut with the "ma'am."

Well, it's your loss, junior. I'm sticking with the fish counter from now on. Sure the guys there are older than me, but I don't see that as a problem, (you probably think they're goners any day now) and I'm fairly certain that one of them is legally blind, BUT they know how to treat a lady!

Signed,

An Interesting Older Woman Who Is NOT Old Enough To Be Your Mom
(who once attended a halloween party wearing nothing but tights and body paint, so there!)

x.

i gotta be me!...who else could i be?

the other night i was getting the duke tucked in when he asked me about spanking...

this was in reference to a passage he heard from a book on tape...the character mentioned spanking...

so we talked about it...why the lord of the ring and i think it is not the way to discipline in this family...how others feel differently...

then i mentioned that when i was his age, we would get permission slips sent home for our parents to sign to allow the principal of our school to spank us for disobedience at school...(let me just say, what a totally creepy and fucked up concept!)

to which the duke gets a very confused look on his face and asks

"you had parents?"

um, WHAT?!?

"of course...everybody has parents"

"who are your parents?"

again, WHAT?!?

"the bag lady in paris and pops...you know that"

"they were your parents?...like they took care of you?"

at this point i'm beginning to wonder

a) when he started huffing gas
b) maybe homeschooling has sheltered him a little too much

"well, yes"

"but i don't understand, did you all live together?"

"for awhile, yeah...but it just worked out better for the bag lady in paris and pops to live separately"

then the duke mutters

"i don't see how it could have ever worked out in the first place"

indeed...

it's funny, because this is not the first time someone has expressed surprise at the concept of me having actual parents...

i had this friend, weirdrichkid...we were having a discussion and somehow or another the subject of my parents came up...right in the middle of me talking he pipes up with

"wait...it's just so weird to think of you as having parents...i just think of you as, you know, you...that you just are, and that there isn't really anyone responsible for you...like you just hatched"

what do you say to that?...you say nothing because weirdrichkid is paying for you to go to midwifery school at the end of summer and you don't have the check yet...in fact you don't get the check until the last possible moment that includes a detour to denver...as is colorado!... and that you do not notice until it's too late has your estranged husband's last name on it and not yours...

but, i digress...

i suppose it's my, hmm, well...what is it about me that leads people to assume i was the pack of wolves who raised me?...who knows...

but, just for kicks, let's review the facts...my mom tells me my real mother is a bag lady in paris...my dad says he found me and dug me up out of the sand on the beach...one sister got my mom's last name and the other sister got my dad's last name and my last name is made up...

maybe i was hatched, adopted, cloned?...yeah...that's it!...like dolly the sheep!...who needs parents when you've got a petrie dish and a little time?...

who knows?...and frankly, who cares?...if the bag lady in paris and pops want to claim me then so be it...regardless, i am just me...(well, and honestly, as i get older, i am becoming more like the both of them too)...just me...in all the glamour and glory that being me brings...

wow, it's a wonder i don't drink more...

anyhow, what all this really tells me is that i gotta quit talking to the duke, especially when i'm tired...the kid is whacked and stirs up the whacked-ness in me..."you have parents?"...cheeky little bugger, isn't he?...

oh, and just to let you know...i haven't seen or spoken to weirdrichkid for over five years now...not since the duke was a toddler and we lived in san francisco...he showed up one night out of the blue...and ate us out of house and home even though we were dead broke and living on a bag of rice and a few veggies until we got paid...

and used up most of the toilet paper he was in the bathroom so much...

oh, and didn't tell us that he thought he might have contracted tuberculosis right before he came to stay with us...

glamour and glory, i tell ya...

x.

my son, the profiler...

friday night is family movie night...

the duke of fun chose to rent 101 dalmations, the original animated version...he had never seen it before...

so not two minutes after cruella deville shows up in the movie (so far not having really done anything wrong) the duke of fun says

"she should just be sent to jail before it's too late"

my son, the profiler...

sorry to cut it short, but i gotta run...i've been going through closets and de-cluttering like a mad fool...i've got one closet left and i need to keep my momentum going!

x.

death, drugs, and gender bias...and it's not even 7am!

so on the way home this morning out of the clear blue the duke says

"i don't care for cherry popsicles or cherry medicine"

okay, thanks for that totally random information...then he says

"did you know medicine are drugs?"

he recently learned the word drugs...some well meaning public service announcement on t.v. most likely...he asked what they were a few days ago, and we said they are medicine...and that people say don't do drugs because they want kids to know that a parent should be the one to give them to you...

which makes me wonder when he will bust out with the following

"i only do drugs when my parents give them to me"

i can hardly wait...

so we drive a bit more and out of the clear blue wingman says

"i don't like dirrel (girl) shows...oney (only) boy shows"

this always baffles me as his two favorite shows on the entire planet have girls as the main character...

then he says a little more quietly, as if to himself...

"i no like ponies"

and even though he says it quietly it is said with such venom and such force i look back in the mirror...the look on his face is so bitter and scrunched and just plain horrified at the mere thought of ponies...

okay, that's a little disturbing...

which brings us to home, and to the little matter of a dead fish...rocky...he's been a little off the past few days...he's been given to depression before, i just figured he was in a downswing...but, alas, no...well, unless?...naw, how could he have?...

i suspect it was just his time...the lord of the ring flushed him before we left to drop him off at the bus...

but when we got home i had to tell the kids...so i sat them down and with proper reverence and gentleness told them rocky got sick and he died last night...i got the following two responses...the duke pipes up right away

"can we get a new fish!"

then wingman chimes in with a little more enthusiasm than i think the situation warrants and asks

"can i see him!"

my boys, future hospice care workers...

i told them should they feel sad later, come and talk to me...

fat chance...good thing i flushed the old boy or else the duke would probably want to cut it up for a science project and wingman would probably want to feed it to the geriatric hiccuping cat...

so that's my morning...and all before 7 a.m., no less...which is why i am allowing myself the second cup of coffee and wondering why in the hell i haven't gotten the baileys yet...

x.

i guess i'll keep them...

they really aren't all that bad...besides, i went through too too much during pregnancy and labor with the two of them, i'm determined to make sure it was worth my while...

plus, i'm pretty sure there are laws about giving away your children...

and this morning, i happened upon the duke teaching wingman how to play chess...

it was really too precious...and, there was no shouting or throwing of pieces...which is how it would end if it were me he was trying to teach...

we are moving into studying shakespeare and three digit division for school...it should be fun, well, the shakespeare part at least...although i am beginning to not be so math phobic these past weeks...

the duke is really enjoying soccer...he seems a bit sad about missing chess club, but i think it's good that he enjoyed it so much and has it to look forward to after soccer season is over...

which by the way is two nights a week and EVERY SATURDAY FROM HERE UNTIL THANKSGIVING!...i shoulda known...apparently the lord of the ring and i are down two folding chairs and a colorful array of matching sweatshirts...gotta take care of that...dear god...

oh, and i have to be sure to get an extra large thermos for the uh, adult refreshments...no way am i sitting in the cold and wind and rain in my folding chair and matching crew neck sweatshirt without fortification...

okay, maybe just for the afternoon games...although, now that i think about it, i have always been rather fond of baileys and coffee...

oh, and in case you are interested, wingman won the chess game...

x.

free to a good home...will ship...

i am afraid i will have to give the boybarians away...

not only are they annoying me to death today, they are also eating me out of house and home...

i imagine it will only get worse as they get older...

so i figure i'll nip it in the bud right away, and preferably before the lord of the ring gets home and tries to talk me out of it...

oh, and they come with one old cat who i think has, among other fascinating and charming habits, developed a recurring case of the hiccups...

x.