Phone calls I never expected to receive...

My phone rings today, and I see that it's Peter's phone, so I answer, "Hey!"

But it's not Peter, it's Geoffrey.

G: "Peter's locked in the garage!"
Me: "What????"
G: "Peter's locked in the garage. He came into the garage, shut the door, and now the power's out and the knob on the door from the house to the garage won't turn"
Me: (asking the obvious, but hey) "Is the door from the house to the garage unlocked?"
G: "Yes, it just won't...Oh, here he is! He's out now!"

So, yeah, still not entirely sure how it was that it took to very bright young men so long to, um, turn a doorknob. Or why Peter didn't go out the outside people-door in the garage. But whatever, all's well that ends well!

If it's September...

I must be waiting for a kid. Or going to a meeting for a kid. Or driving a kid.

Last night was Geoffrey's Scout night -- his Dad's in DC, so I drove him. To Apex, mind you.

Tonight was the Gifted meeting at Peter and Geoff's school. Again, being the only parent (or quasi-parent, as the case may be) in the general area, I went.

Tonight was also Peter's Scout night. So, yeah, left work, drove to gifted meeting, met, drove home, cooked, ate, Peter changed, drove to his Scout meeting, and now I'm (yay) sitting in a coffee shop, blogging, Facebooking, emailing...Oh, and drinking cappucino.

Yeah, baby.

And, a note on this "Gifted" meeting -- this school has a reasonably good, as school's go, website, including a map of the school. They have a front desk that is pretty much always manned. Our kids all go there. The PTA sends out reminders of meetings, AND the meetings are posted on the aforementioned website.

Yet a surprising number of parents were late, couldn't find the media center, didn't find out till late, yada yada yada yada.

Oh, and after being explicitly told (twice) "I'd rather have questions in email so that I can take the time to answer it well, but if there's something critical I can stick around briefly afterwards", we interrupted at least a half dozen times. And another half dozen or more folks (out of maybe 25) stuck around afterwards for "critical" questions.

So, what exactly does that say about those of use who are "gifted" parents? Um, we don't read email, can't retain information, don't know how to do on-line research, and refuse to listen to the rules of the classroom.

Hmmmm.

Ok, so perhaps I'm a bit cynical tonight!

My girl has fashion sense!

Or, perhaps a sense of propriety.

So, I'm home sick today, and we're watching a home-made Star Wars marathon. We're in the middle of Episode II, where Annikan buries his mother. Ani's step-sister-in-law, the future Aunt Beru, is there, wearing the standard Tatooine uniform of very neutral (ie sand) colored tunic and leggings.

And Grace says?

"White!?!?!?! Why is she wearing white??? It's a funeral!!!!!"

And, yes, I did tell her that in some cultures white IS a funereal color!

Holy Smokes

My daughter has called me about 7 times this morning, on three different phones.

Yowza!

This is the way we wash our clothes...

Peter is home, for 36 hours or so. He'll be with his Dad this weekend, then leaves around 10 am Sunday for Boy Scout camp.

So we're washing cloths.

Or, rather, I'm washing clothes.

Which, honestly, is not that difficult: run upstairs during a commercial, sort and throw first load in. Spin sheets in dryer. I'll run up in a bit during a commercial to take sheets out of dryer, put first load IN dryer and second load out.

But the bad thing is, I'm going to be doing the same thing NEXT Saturday. Peter will get home from Scout Camp about 2pm on Saturday, and will be home for a solid 24 hours this time, before leaving with his buddy Blake for the beach on Sunday.

Sheesh. I think it's time for Peter to learn to run the washer!

My Boy!

Today was Peter's fifth-grade "graduation". It was a nice ceremony; there was lots of involvement by the students in either introducing speakers, emceeing, performing, and speaking.

Each of the three third grade classes had a speaker; all the kids wrote essays on what FPG (the school) meant to them; the teachers then selected finalists, and the kids in each class voted on which essay they wanted to represent their class.

Peter was chosen from his class (Mom beams with pride!). I'll post a video of him reading his essay once I swipe it from his Dad's website, but for now, here's the text:

Hi. My name is Peter Cohen, and I have been at FPG since Kindergarten. I have loved every single minute that I’ve been here. Throughout my years here, I have learned many things, such as:

Don’t touch your teacher’s lava lamp at nap time! That happened when I was in Ms. Story and Ms. Potter’s kindergarten class. We had nap time every day, and on that day I decided to lay down next to Ms. Potter’s desk. I had been fascinated by that lava lamp since the first day of school, so when she got up, I stuck my hand up, and touched it. Big mistake. It had been on for a few hours, so it was very hot. No one ever found out, but I have always regretted it.

Another thing that I’ve learned is that when you make a discovery, and want to tell people about it, don’t. Trust me, because the same thing happened to me when I was in Ms. Del Gaizo and Ms. Farrington’s second grade class. I was outside taking my weekly spelling test, and I noticed a large green caterpillar inching towards me. I told Ms. Del Gaizo, and since we were done with the test, we had to go inside and read quietly. Well, yours truly started talking about how he had made a great discovery, and how he was going to be rich and famous. Well, I did make a discovery that day, but it wasn’t the caterpillar. It was that teacher’s have ears like a hawk. Ms. Farrington heard, and I got silent lunch for the first time ever.

The last thing I will tell you about is this:

Teachers love it when you are a good student. They don’t love it when you hate their favorite sports team. That happened to me this year in Ms. Rigor and Ms. Gray-Ford’s fifth grade class. I’m a pretty good student, but my teacher, Ms. Rigor is a die-hard San Francisco Giants fan, and I’m a big Boston Red Sox fan. There has been a lot of arguing, mostly about Barry Bonds and the upcoming World Series. So, she loves me, and she hates the shirts I wear.

These are some memories I have from FPG, and I hope I never forget
them.

That's my boy! (Mom beams some more)

Crazy Afternoon

Today my group at work had our annual Christmas Lunch. Yeah, Christmas -- we've discovered that having a group lunch during December is nearly impossible; in early December everyone is busy trying to get work finished, and then people are frequently gone for the holidays.

Anyway, I got out of lunch, and discoverd many missed calls, voice mails, etc. from Jeff (PF Changs is apparently loud). Turns out Grace had fallen off a piece of playground equipment at school, and fell about 5 feet, hitting her neck and back on the way down. She was complaining of a pain in her neck (and it WASN'T her brother), so the school tried to call me, couldn't (stinkin' Christmas lunch), called her Dad, and called the paramedics.

Jeff got there a little before the paramedics, which was good. They (paramedics) decided to put a brace on her neck and put her on a back board, then take her to the ER.

At the ER they examined her, then took her back for x-rays (at which point I showed up).

Luckily, all was well; nothing broken, and with an afternoon of rest (cause, yeah, nothing moves fast in the ER, so we were there for over three hours), the pain subsided as well.

She's now on th chaise, plaing NBA 09 with her brother, is alert, not in pain, and her normal, exuberant Grace self.

But I'd really rather not go through that again!

Pretty Cake

I was out of town this weekend; a GREAT weekend in the mountains. As with all vacations, there was a little bit of sadness when I got home; I never want vacations to end!

But there, on my kitchen table (under a bowl so The Boys wouldn't eat it) was this:

What a pretty cake!

It's a flower cake that Grace made me at the birthday party she went to on Saturday!

That took longer than it should've

My darling son is a big fat sleepy-head. And a night owl, to boot.

So, regardless of what time I insist he be in his jammies and in his room, he will frequently stay up till all hours of the night. I learned when he was about 2 that it's really hard to make someone sleep, at least without lots of tears and threats, so I figure there's not much to do other than insist on bedtime, even if he doesn't sleep, and insist on getting-up-time.

But it's a challenge.

He has an alarm clock, and it goes off every morning. On a buzzer, even.

He sleeps through it.

He slept through it for an hour one morning when I was feeling particularly passive aggressive!

He will wake up when I call him, but to be honest, he needs to learn to get himself up.

So, last night we tried something different. His clock actually has two alarm settings; he put one on for 6:00 (he also has his mother's tendency to like to get up gradually), and set it to 99.9 The Fan, the local all-sports, all-talk station. Then he set the other one to go off at 6:30, with a buzzer.

Worked a charm, as my English grand-boss would say! He was out of bed and in the shower at 6:33!

But you'd think that the sports angle would've ocurred to us before now!

They know us here

Grace is having a sleepover tonight (with her friend Grace, no less, just to thoroughly confuse the situation), and I've been spreading mulch all day, so didn't feel like cooking, so we went to Elmo's for dinner.

We saw, between the four of us, roughly 5 separate parties of people we knew, and a grand total of about 20 - 30 people.

And that's not even counting the wait staff that we recognize!

And the sad thing is, I didn't actually see ANYONE I knew! They were all families the KIDS knew!

Sheesh.

I have a good kid

Well, actually, I have two good kids! But I'm especially proud of Grace today.

As anyone with more than a superficial interest in ACC (perhaps even college) basketball knows, last night was the first of this years Duke-Carolina games.

The Duke-Carolina rivalry is a passionate one. We hate each other. Truly. And, yes, if it sounds like I'm repeating myself, I have blogged about this before.

But part of the fun of the rivalry is that we DO hate each other. Both fanbases are passionate about their school, and convinced they do it right, even though only Carolina really does. And we revel in provoking each other (witness that last sentence!).

Now, for the most part in Chapel Hill, folks are UNC fans. But not all, by any means. A few of the teachers at the kids' school are Dookies, while I'm saddened by their choice, I do applaud their undying loyalty; they wear their Duke blue and their Devils proudly, particularly on the days of the Duke-Carolina game.

Well, one of the teachers who's a Duke fan decked himself out yesterday; undoubtedly at least partially to egg on the student body. He not only had on the pants/shirt/hat/socks, he also draped himself in a Duke flag and ran through the cafeteria.

He was soundly booed. Goodnaturedly (I hope), but soundly. And, yes, Grace as a good Tarheel, joined in...

...until she saw her friend Grace T (who, for some reason is known as Baby Bob). Baby Bob, who's also a Duke fan, was really, really upset by all the boos, and had started crying. My Grace immediately stopped booing, and tried to make Other Grace/Baby Bob feel better.

As much as I enjoy sharing my love for Carolina with my kids, I am far, FAR prouder that Grace realizes that it IS just a game, and isn't worth losing a friendship over.

But, yeah, I don't know if I'd've posted this if Carolina had lost last night! ;-)
.

Well, it IS an appositive...

Grace's reading homework tonight was to read a blurb on Paul Revere, then answer some questions; all having to do with finding the appositive phrases. Then they had to write their own sentence that contained an appositive.

Grace's sentence?

"I am My Own Worst Enemy, the first song I played on medium, is my favorite song in Rockband 2."

Let's just hope her teacher isn't a Lit fan....

A good weekend

I haven't had many really, truly GOOD weekends lately; they haven't been hideous or traumatic (at least not TOO traumatic), but there have been high emotions, exhaustion, whininess, etc. And, yes, pretty much all from me, though some of the emotion (and certainly some exhaustion) has come from other quarters.

Anyway, THIS weekend was really, really good. Even great, I might say.

First of all, I had a lazy Friday evening of Pinewood Dery final steps and Rockband. Grace had a fundraiser at school for her drum line; Peter needed to get the wheels on his Pinewood Derby car, so came to my house to do that; we got the wheels on, glued on the figure, and then grabbed a bite to eat. Then David and I played Rockband! Nothing major, but a good, calm, non-angst ridden night.

Then Saturday was pretty much a red-letter day. Peter won first place in Most Original at his Pinewood Derby. Both kids lost their basketball games, true, but Grace learned to set a screen, and did it well! Peter had a great (personal) game: 10 points, 8 rebounds, a block and a steal (and a turnover, but we won't talk about that). After Peter's game, I headed to David's house where I watched UNC beat State (always a good thing), then we went to a Hurricanes game. The 'Canes played really well, and really HARD! Tons of checks, very aggressive play, and they won.

Today was milder again; I rang in church, which means getting up early (ugh), but putzed around with David, then made chicken wings, nachos and pound cake and watched the Superbowl with him and his kids. And the Steelers won, so Peter, and by extension his mother, is happy!

I like good weekends!
.

Ignorence is bliss...

And by that, of course, I mean that it's reasonably blissfull when your kids (and their friends) are still ignorant of certain.....terms.

Santa brought an XBox to our house for Christmas, and David gave me Rockband 2. My kids, somewhat to my surprise, really get a kick out of Rockband. Today Peter had a friend over, and he, too, got into Rockband.

I played with them for awhile, then needed to go bake cookies, so they continued on without me. One of the songs they picked to play was Roxanne by The Police.

I was a little concerned, but figured I could always explain some of the lyrics by saying, "Well, he really likes this girl and he doesn't want her flirting with other guys." Technically true...

But then they got to the "You don't have to put on the red light" bit. Uh, yeah, I might have a tougher time explaining that one...

Luckily, one of them said, "I don't have any idea what that means! It makes no sense!!" and the other said, "Yeah, me either!!!" (both giggling hysterically).

WHEW!

My Rock-n-Roll kids...

I got Rockband 2 for Christmas: TONS of fun, incidentally.

Theoretically, it was for me and my kids. I have to admit, I kinda thought that was silly at first: my kids are 8 and 10; the 10 year old has, to date, shown NO signs of wanting to live a rock-n-roll kinda life, even vicariously. The 8 year old would LOVE to live a RnR live, vicariously or really, but doesn't quite have the hand-eye coordination for RB (plus she isn't tall enough to play drums -- her feet don't reach the bass pedal!).

But, surprisingly, they LOVE it! And as a result, I'm loving it even more than I figured I would!

When we play as a band, Peter plays guitar, I play drums, and Grace sings. Quite frankly, G's singing needs work, but I think that's as much a result of not having a clue what the songs/words are as anything (not much Hannah Montana or Jo-Bros on RB). Peter's guitar work is not bad. Between the three of us, we can typically get 3 or 4 stars.

So, as a result of this, my son now knows who the Beastie Boys are (and that I hate them), who Elvis Costello is (and that I love him), sings along to Duran Duran and Paramore, and (finally) understands that the song is Kids in America (not the Future) and it's by Kim Wilde, not the Jonas Brothers!

Oh, yeah, life is good.....

OK, OK, I get it!

My little boy is growing up. Yeah, I know, he has been for quite some time now. But sometimes I have a hard time remembering. Luckily, Peter is very good at gently reminding me!

Today in church, during the sermon there was a point where the minister was talking about young men serving in the armed forces, etc. I have to admit that I have a pretty visceral reaction to such talk, as the mother of a son (who will be draft-age in 8 years -- and you wonder why I voted Obama????), so without even thinking, I moved my arm from where it had been, along the back of the pew behind Peter, to his shoulder, and gave him a bit of a hug.

And got a shrug. And then a look! OK, so it was a little TOO public a PDA for my boy, I could cope. So I put my arm back on the back of the pew.

And within a few minutes, Peter began pushing his head back against my arm!

OK, OK!!!!! Fine then!

My arm remained in my lap the rest of the service!

(Incidentally, the title of the sermon was "Signs, Signs, Everywhere are signs", which I found very amusing given Peter's non-verbal cues that I was being TOO Mom-ish!)

Does that glazed look mean you're not listening?

(Aside: It's been 11 days since I've blogged?!?!?! Heavens!!!!)

The kid's Dad was in the local paper today; we knew he was going to be there, but didn't know that it was going to literally be the front page. So, needless to say, they were VERY excited when they brought the paper in.

I told them to set the section aside so they could take it to him tomorrow night so he could have a hard copy of the article if he wanted. Peter didn't react, but Grace looked at me as if I were nutso, and said, "Hard copy?"

So, I tried to explain the difference between a hard and soft copy, which of course led into a discussion of hard and soft ware. Peter had heard it all before, because on Sunday I had him call his grandfather to ask if he wanted a hard copy of my Uncle Bob's obituary. So he affected a worldly and knowing attitude for his little sister (I spilled the beans on him, though).

I'm not entirely sure they get it, though; primarily because the notion of NOT having access to soft copies is utterly foreign to them!

Es-Silly

Last night I had bells from 6-7:30; Peter had ball practice at 7:15. Since I haven't QUITE figured out how to be in two places at one time, I got Kathy to take Peter to his practice.

Apparently as they were walking across the parking lot, he looked up at her and said, "Que pasa, perro?"

Which, of course, is Spanish for "Whassup, dawg?"

Lord, have mercy.

Really? You can do that with Mentos?

I imagine years ago, if a child showed an interest in math or science, their parent might say to them, "Work hard in science, and someday YOU could work for NASA". Or Bell Labs, Microsoft, Dow, whoever the 'cool' science guys of the day were.

And what I said to Peter tonight?

"Work hard in science, and someday YOU could work for Mythbusters!"

Of course, I think mainly he wants to blow things up!

My silly (but worldly) kids...

We were getting silly at dinner last night, and at one point I asked my kids the classic question from Stand By Me (or, for you purists, from The Body by Stephen King): "Micky's a mouse, Donald's a duck, Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?"

They, of coures, replied, "He's a dog!"

So I said, "But Pluto's a dog. What's Goofy?"

Finally Grace got exasperated with her mother's stupidity, and (very patiently) said, "Mom. Micky and Minnie are both mice. Donald and Daisy are both ducks. Pluto and Goofy are both dogs."

At which point Peter cried out, "Hey, Pluto and Goofy are gay!!!"