Spy Kids

Regardless of how tightly packed your summer is with camps, vacations, projects, activities and events, eventually the whole darn thing melts down into a stay at home mom with learned helplessness and children plugged into video games. So in order to stop the insanity (and the incessant discussion of various game levels and what was gained or lost on them) I ordered the boys to do something using ONLY their imaginations. This lasted eight seconds. They came up with a Spy scenario involving missions and such, but they needed gadgets. Absolutely required them, no getting around it. It started innocently enough, with a couple of paper towel rolls and the discussion of what spy telescopes should look like, but that snowballed into the need for electronic equipment--I mean what James Bond film depends utterly on cardboard? With the argument made and accepted, I agreed to get them walkie-talkies from Dick's Sporting Goods.

Rookie mistake.

Now, instead of hearing about video game levels, I'm stuck in one of those Verizon wireless commercials. Mason: "Stephen, can you hear me now? I'm on the stairs." Stephen: " I can hear you. Can you hear me? I am in the back yard." And on and on it goes. I'm not sure how the mission is going, but one thing is crystal clear. If the element of surprise is necessary to thwart the enemy, we'd better craft our little white flags now. Out of paper towels. Lots of them. How do you think I got to the rolls so quickly?

Home Improvement

Monte is a mad genius. Just don't tell him I said so. In the 18 years we've been married, he's gone from this adorably geeky kid to a Renaissance man. In the home improvement category, he spent one weekend watching our uberbuilder friend Rickey tile the downstairs bathroom, and suddenly he not only had the urge to tile other bathrooms but he how has the wherewithal to do it all by himself. It's like watching the brain plug in scenes from the Matrix films. Can't tile? Wait a second, I watched somebody or asked a couple of questions or watched a video, plugged in my brain, had a little rapid eye movement and bippety-boppety-boo, I CAN tile. And fly helicopters. Ridiculous.

Here is evidence of some of his recent work. The tile you see here took him three days. (If I had done it, after the three days I would have had two pieces of tile glued to each other and the rest broken into little jagged pieces. You would then find me downstairs eating an entire chocolate cake and crying.)


The kitchen is still in progress. He's doing it at night after work. Well, ONE night after work. Night two is for grout, and presumably, for him to rest and survey his handiwork and call it "good."


Since none of the appliances have a home while the tiles goes up, Peyton got to examine my green mixer, that would have been red if I hadn't listened to my sister when I was ordering it from QVC in 2001. I doubt the red would have made the food taste like fine cuisine, but I would have liked looking at it better for the 100s of years I'll own the dumb thing. Stupid Kitchenaid and their Toyota like durability.


In the space of three seconds, he got the front circle part off (the part that, if I really could cook, would accommodate lovely life simplifying attachments) and was running down the hall with it. I finally pried it from his clenched fist, and then got front row seats to the most amazing tantrum you've ever seen.


Terrible twos, six months early. Ah well, at least I'll have several lovely tiled living spaces from which to watch the meltdowns. It's all about perspective.

Say cheese

Ever eaten shredded cheese with a fork?

No?

It's probably just as well.

Have you seen this kid?

We've had a wild few weeks. We got back from Cancun last Sunday, and by the time I had unpacked and washed everything it was time to take Mason to his first ever week of Ne-o-tez church camp. He looked pretty shy and quiet standing there with all the other boys who can't stand still (the girls were off in a group of their own, and it didn't look like they were quite ready to have anything to do with the boys. Lucky for me. I would hate to pick him up in a week and find out there's a . . . girlfriend. Ack.) Monte went back to check on him twice before he finally agreed to get in the car and go. He is worried Mason will not have the time of his life and that he might be sad for a week. I am worried his clothes will come back irrevokably stained and grimy. Monte is worried Mason wont get what he likes to eat at camp, and that he might be hungry. I am worried he wont brush his teeth all week long. Monte is worried his little boy will be lonely without his daddy. I am worried his mother will get used to peace and quiet and then be jolted violently back to reality when his mouth comes home.

I hope my little boy isn't lonely, and that he's having a good time. Goodnight sweet boy. We miss you terribly already, and it has only been six hours. Good grief!

Mason's Crazy Hair

GeoTagged, [N38.93428, E92.38937]

Happy whateverth of July

The problem with traditions are that you have to have the wherewithal and the focus to keep them in the same way every single year to have any lasting or meaningful effect on collective memory. Sometimes our little family of five celebrates American Independence by spending hundreds of dollars setting off fireworks at the farm. Sometimes we go and see someone else's fireworks (the upside here being that you save tons of money and (probably) eat someone else's food), and then sometimes we hit a movie or go to the store and skip fireworks altogether. And then there are my personal favorite years where Monte says, "When is the 4th anyway?" on the 5th. We just don't have the dedication to scheduling and planning that it takes to do the same thing at the same time every year except in very specific cases (Halloween trick or treating, and being home on Christmas day are the only two I can think of.) Frankly, tradition takes too much concentration, and besides, the little boy audience barely notices the holiday itself, except to be grateful for school cancellation. Maybe if I had daughters there would be some sort of expectation or something, but boys can't remember what they did yesterday--and unless it has to do with video game levels, they don't care.

So from our house to yours we extend our most sincere and happy non-traditional 4th of July wishes, complete with everything or nothing, as you choose to celebrate it, in your own way. Or not. Go Lakers!