Fondue

Because everything tastes better when it's dipped in chocolate.

As a parent, there are very few moments where I think back to my own childhood and feel vindicated. There are, however, many thousands of moments I revisit and think "OH. I get it now."

As a child I don't remember ever sending out valentines to my classmates. This says to me that either that I lived without exchanging valentines in which case it is not necessary, or that I exchanged valentines and have no memory of it in which case they are not necessary.

Nevertheless, ever since the first year Nick was in school and he received 20 valentines from his classmates and gave out Zero, I have made it a point to get valentines out to classmates. And until this year, I did all the work. After all, you just buy them, scribble your kids name on them, and then give them to the teacher to pass out, right?

But this year, I am promoting skills such as handwriting and letter recognition. So this year, I am making Nick and Nate do the writing themselves.

It didn't seem so crazy at first. Nate has 16 kids to give cards to, and his teachers have asked that they not be addressed to a specific child, so that they may be distributed more easily. All he has to do is write his name 16 times. Nick has 13 kids to pass out valentines to. He not only needs to sign his name, but write his friends names on the envelopes. Still, it's only 14. Hardly like writing 100 Wedding Gift Thank Yous.

The trouble is, there is SO much to writing that we, as literate adults, take for granted. At school, both boys are learning how to form their letters. When Nick writes the letter R, for example, I can tell he is really thinking about the little bubble at the top and the diagonal line. He doesn't always end the bubble and start the diagonal at the same point, though. Which is fine, and I expected that.

It's just the other things. Little details such as writing the letters in a straight line instead of writing each letter a little bit higher than the last. Or almost running out of room and then just starting to write letters underneath the first few, but in a random order.

I expected some of these things from Nathan, but I didn't expect to have to hang over Nick's shoulder in case he should decide to write from right to left. To make matters worse, the pens the boys were using tended to smudge, but instead of letting the letters dry, they liked to run their fingers over the names to see the ink streak. I guess it was cool looking.

I know I startled Nick more than once, and each boy had done only 2 cards before they slumped. "I'm bored with this!" Nate said. And Nick added "This is KILLING me!"

I remember writing a Thank You note for my Kindergarten teacher. My mother helped me form each letter very carefully, but had to run to answer the phone. While she was gone, I amused myself by writing over each letter, trying to keep the pen on the lines I had made with my mom. When she came back, she freaked out, declared the card ruined, and we had to start again. I was SO TOTALLY confused. I mean, it looked the same to me, more or less. With a few more bumps.

But after yelling "Stop!" nineteen times as Nick was about to misspell a name or curved the wrong way with a J or a G... well...

Oh.

I get it.

.

update

Tomorrow, I will post photos.

I just had to let everyone know we have heat. There is a temporary fix on the furnace. We still have to have it "really" fixed.

I am assuming everyone has days that string together where everything in your house or apartment seems to be broken or not functioning 100%... well, the furnace needs fixing. The light in our bathroom goes days without working but if you leave it on, will suddenly turn on in the middle of the night. My garage door has a habit of opening two feet and then freezing. The wallpaper in my bathroom is peeling. The towel rack in the boys' bathroom is still broken, and the faucets all drip. I still need to patch the hole in the side-hall made by the doorknob after the doorstop was removed. The light in the room off the living room is exposed and needs a cover. I have a billion photographs to frame and hang.

Most of the time, I can exist in this reality without getting excessively irritated. And then there are days like today, where I can't turn my head without seeing something that needs fixing, doing, patching... and I just don't have the time, and I just can't seem to muster the effort.

Jokes

Our furnace is broken. It's under 20 degrees outside, and we have zero heat. It's Saturday night, and tomorrow is Superbowl Sunday. As you can imagine, this is not the most enviable position to be in.

But today we enjoyed a visit from Pam and Larry, which is always really nice. And the boys told me a few jokes while I was giving them their bath. I thought I'd share, in order to cheer myself up.

Andy's Joke:
- knock knock
- who's there?
- Nana (banana.)
- Banana who?
- JOKE!

Nick's Joke:
- Why did the chicken cross the road?
- To get the roast chicken!

Nate's Joke:
- What plus six?
- I don't get it. What do you mean, what plus six?
- I'm tellin' a plus joke.

Well, it cheered ME up.

The non-post

Usually I have something to write about - a topic, a subject, or at least a photo to distract from the lack of vocabulary. But today I'm coming up empty. I have cute pics on the camera, but it's far too much work to upload them now. And there isn't really too much to say at the moment. Things seem to be going well. We're all healthy, for now.

The kids haven't even said anything particularly funny. Sure, today I caught Andy walking around in just a diaper and snow boots, but that's almost commonplace around here.

Bones I never knew I had

As I was tucking him in bed for the night, Nate ran his fingers through my hair and hot a snarl.

He asks, "Is these one of the bones from your hair?"

Yes. That's what they are from now on. Hair Bones.

Divine Chaos

Today, as I was folding laundry and trying to listen / watch my computer, the boys spilled into the dining room. I always fold laundry in the dining room because there is a big table in there and, more importantly, there is a big table without spilled juice, milk, or water hiding on it, and without undiscovered blotches of jam or syrup or ketchup leftover for lunch.

Anyway, I always get irritated when the boys do this. I'm busy, obviously, and my attention is directed elsewhere (the computer) and I don't see why they need to play three feet away from me when they have a living room, a play room, and a bedroom to go be loud in. Also, if I were trying to get them to pick up a toy or put shoes on, they would all three spread out to any of these locations and turn off their ears.

So I started my routine of "could you please go somewhere else," especially since both Nate and Andy were on ride-around toys which they kept trying to drive over the computer cord, which they couldn't do, so they kept needing to stop and pick up the toy as they waddled the few steps until they could begin riding again...

And then I just had to stop and laugh. Because as irritated as I was, I couldn't help noticing that all three boys were playing together and having fun, together, without fighting, or beating up on each other, or crying. Not even in play. They were all noisy and driving around the house, but they were all together.

And that was kind of cool and sweet to watch.