Not thinking ahead - a man's problem?.....

Brad was meeting Marc and John for dinner...

First a little background.
John lives roughly an hour or so SOUTH of us. Marc lives just under half an our NORTH of us. The plan was to meet for dinner about 15 minutes SOUTH of us; presumably to make John's trip home a little easier. Before the 'dinner meeting' John went up to visit Marc at the store he owns and I'm sure they had a nice visit.

So now for the ...... stupid... uh.. I mean.. um... not as well planned out as it could have been part.
So for some reason not apparent to the rest of us, John and Marc thought it would be a good idea for Marc to drive down to dinner with John which I'll remind you is about 40 minutes-ish SOUTH of where Marc lives. Then oddly enough when dinner was over at 10:30pm John didn't want to drive 40 minutes NORTH of the restaurant so he could then turn around and drive nearly two hours SOUTH back to his home.

So guess who got to drive Marc home????? No wait, you'll never guess. Let's just say that it's after midnight and my husband is still not home.

Camela

The missing fabric...

Me: Teddy can you explain this rectangular shaped piece of missing fabric in your new bedspread?
Teddy: No
Me: (raises eyebrows (man I wish I could raise only one))
Ted: (big annoyed sigh) Look (points to scissors on top of dresser)
Me: And???
Ted: I cut it.
Me: Good night (I turned and left thinking that was the safest thing for both of us right then)
Ted: ON ACCIDENT
Me: You did not cut out that shape by accident

Then I high tailed it out of there before more damage was done.

Jeez!!!

Our life right now

Brad and Camela
I'm into my busy time at work which means Brad takes on the brunt of our home life. It's so blissful to have a marriage where the ebb and flow of life's outside committments just means the inside committments ebb and flow as well - it's not the end of the world when he has to pick up more stuff at home or when he's out of town for half the week for several weeks in a row and I have to pick up more stuff. I feel very lucky.

Jackson
While we were at Teddy's recent band concert, I asked Jackson what instrument he was going to play next year and he informed me he has just decided he doesn't want to play an instrument. This is a major problem for me. He doesn't have to grow up and be a band geek but he has to, absolutely has to, play some sort of instrument for a few years at least. I think music appreciation is a vital component of a well rounded person not to mention the other more brainiac ways music is good for the brain - music is just plain good for the soul - this just will not do! And of the two kids, I'd say Jackson is more likely to really get into playing music - maybe as a guitarist in a punk band with purple hair, but still...

I really think this is about living in Teddy's shadow and he just doesn't want to do something that Ted already does which I can understand but I need to nip this in the bud. I told him last night it was time to start private lessons. That the first things that popped into my head were the piano, guitar, or drums since we have all those in the house, which made total sense to him, but that he could choose anything he wanted. I'm hoping if I just make this part of a non-school related thing - it won't be too hard to get him started and then he can continue in school.

Teddy
He's still 11. He's actually not been that bad in the last week or so but I don't want to say that too loudly in case I jinx it. Brad and I have seriously stepped up our efforts in tracking his every detail in school. We tried to let him do it himself as everyone suggested but man was that not working. He just does not have that skillset - the one that let's him keep track of multiple things. He's just too easily distracted by anything and everything. Since Brad really laid it all out for him, much to his chagrin, and we've both been going over and over and over it all with him and reminding him and reminding him it seems to be going better for him. And really, he's very proud of himself when he sees the results of actually remembering to turn in the homework he already did in his grades. Hopefully things will keep going well. (I don't want to be more optomistic than that).

The Hampsters
Are very cute - all four of them. Teddy is constantly building new homes and tunnels out of legos for his two little guys, it's cute - but pretty soon his cage will be totally full and you'll only be able to see the little guys in the small gaps between the stuff.

Jackson is madly in love with his two. It's very, very cute. We let them out in the bathtub at least once a week to walk all over each boy (it's supposed to continue to help them get used to their owners) and Jackson is just so gleeful about it. It's an interesting thing for Ted, but for him the whole hampster thing is really just a new reason to build cool lego things.

Bandit
is still wildly annoying. He so wants to eat the hampsters. I can't blame him really I'm sure they look nice and tasty, but it's really funny to see him standing at full alert just watching the cages. The real downside is that he can no longer sleep with Teddy because he can't relax and he eventually starts whining while longingly watching at the cage which keeps Teddy awake which means I feel sorry for him and am more likely to let the beast sleep with us. sigh.

Camela

A Christmas picture

Seeking advice....

Why this one thing is bugging me so intensely I have no idea, but perhaps some of you can give me a suggestion as to how to deal with it....

So the 11 year old was told to take a shower this morning during the kids' two hour snow delay. He is flat out filthy, but our schedule just kept him from getting one last night when he should have taken one. He seemed perfectly fine with this plan; didn't seem to be remotely a big deal to him and off I went to work.

Brad calls me a little later and among other things tells me that Ted totally lied about showering. He told Brad he had taken one, pointed to his still damp hair as proof and completely stuck to the lie when pressed. When in reality he had gone up and slightly dampened his hair with the specific intent of deceiving Brad. The kid doesn't even mind taking showers. I'm thinking he did it just to see if he could, though I wasn't there.

My quick gut reaction was to bring down the wrath of thunder (whatever that is) upon his head. How dare he set out to do such a bone headed thing - and yes I know it's a stupid little thing which of course he's tried in the past with wetting his toothbrush too - but I swear I'm so wildly annoyed about this I don't know what to do.

Any thoughts?

a few Christmas pictures

I'll have to find one of me but here are the rest of us from this weekend at my mom's.

My baby Jackson, age 9, I can never get a picture of him smiling right into the camera - how did she do that!

Teddy - age 11. Look at those eyes. They really are that green in real life, though it's not always quite this obvious.

What a wonderfully sweet picture of Teddy and Brad! I love this.

I don't think Dr. Spock would approve

The boys are in MAJOR fighting and constant bickering mode - 24/7. It's driving Brad and I to drink. While if you were to drop in on any given day you might conclude that Jackson is doing more than his fair share of starting it all, I really think it's all starts with Teddy and puberty. He's just so often disagreeable or mean or argumentative that I think Jackson is protecting himself by lashing out first. This is not really the point of this story but there it is.

One of the things my darling Teddy will do is give Jackson a wedgie. Now this is all good and well except for the fact that Teddy is much bigger and stronger than Jackson, not to mention that Teddy has no sense of when to stop - no upper limit. And occasionally he has bursts of anger that if mixed with wedgie giving could be really bad.

So on this particular day they were outside my room while I was laying down with a bad head cold trying to take a nap and they were bickering and fighting and I was doing my best to ignore them and fall asleep..... Until Jackson was screaming; blood curdling screams. I came out and found Jackson writhing around on the ground gasping for air he was crying so hard. I finally got that this pain was caused by a wedgie. I'd had enough. I walked to Teddy told him to turn around which he did though he didn't suspect what I wanted. I reached in and pulled him up and off the ground by his underwear and gave him a solid shake before putting him down again. He was shocked and horrified. (I might have been too - somewhere in there I was thinking... am I really giving my 11 year old a wedgie?)

It hurt him. He yelled and slammed the door and yelled a certain four letter word (for the first time I might add). I told him to watch his mouth. After about five minutes I came out and told him I was sorry that I had hurt him and much to my shock and awe he sheepishly apologized for hurting Jackson. I told him I didn't think he understood just how much it hurts when a bigger and stronger person gives you a wedgie - I think he gets it now.

I think it may have worked out exactly as I intended for it to though I can assure you I was absolutely not thinking clearly at the time because if I had been there's no way I would have done that. Can you imagine? Geez.

Camela