House is not a home

okay. 
so. . .
per usual as of late, i've been M.I.A.
when things get busy, i get bad about jotting the funny things that happen down in my phone. 
this turns into me instantly forgetting the funny things that happened. 
or, it being so long between when i jot these random notes down and the time that i go back to them, that i can't exactly remember what my shorthand meant. 


this past weekend, my friend kelly was in town.
the week before that, i was spending my evenings slowly trying to reassemble my house. 
ironically, one of the few things that stopped me from actually working on my house was watching House. 
as in Dr. Gregory House, MD.
as in the series finale. 
as in, sigh. 


funny enough, when i flipped back through my phone for blog fodder this week, i came across this note from December: 
"anth - it must have been on that show Home."
i have no idea why he said this. 
or what we were talking about.
or when it was, other than December. 
but i do know he was making a close-but-not-quite reference to House. 
and that i found it cute enough at the time to jot it down. 
apparently, not cute enough to do anything else with it. 


anyway. 
House is over. 
and i know i sound absolutely ridiculous saying this, but in the spirit of authenticity... when shows like this end, i go into a tiny little version of TV mourning. 
well, let me clarify. 
when Ally McBeal, e.r., and now House have ended, i have experienced TV mourning. 
what can i say? 
in the case of house, i spend 176 evenings of my life with him and his various team members. 
this is more evenings than i have spent with many real humans that i actually enjoy. 
and, the bookish English major in me has always enjoyed an intriguing character. 
for the past 8 years, House has been that character for me. 
so, last monday night, i literally sat upstairs in bed, while bernie worked on a project downstairs, and just held my remote for a few minutes before i forced myself to hit play. 
i had a tiny little pit in my stomach. 
i do this with really good books as well. 
save the last ten pages/chapter/etc. for a few days. 
i don't like to put good characters to rest. 
i have already told bernie that i want to watch all 8 seasons over again. 
he is sweet and nods while i'm blathering on. 


thankfully, the same week that took away my flawed-yet-endearing Gregory House brought back my favorite reality show, So You Think You Can Dance. 
hooray!
this is especially exciting because it is also one of anth's favorite shows, and one that i tape and watch with him. 
tonight, we finished dinner and bath ahead of schedule, and bern was on the road on the way home from a work event. 
so the boys and i sprawled out on our stomachs on my bed, and we put on the show to watch the last half hour of last week's season premier. 
anth was focused. 
benny was. . . benny. 
he squirmed. 
he sat on our backs. 
he tried to jump high enough to reach the ceiling fan. 
for about 43 seconds, he gave up and watched the show. 
then he got back up and started dancing. 
this was a rather hilarious 30 seconds of my life. 
then, the garage door went up and ben dashed off to greet daddy.
anth linked his ankle around mine and said, "finally, us time."
and my heart melted a little. 


then he turned to me, "mom, isn't this great that we have this time?"
i nodded.
then, "i won't be offended, but i have to know. which one of us is your favorite? i mean, no pressure, but you have to have one."
i asked him if it would be hard to pick a favorite between mommy and daddy because we were so different. 
he said yes. 
i stayed quiet. 
a few moments later, he leaned over, "that was tricky of you."


perhaps. 
but it worked. 


(disclaimer: i sat here for approximately 23 seconds, because that is all my train of thought it good for these days, trying to somehow integrate the beginning of this post into the ending. 
nope. not happening. consider it a 2-for-1.)

holidays are here again

oh look!
pictures from anthony's holiday show and classroom party.
memorial holiday?
not quite. 
perhaps closer to the winter holiday variety. 

yep. 
no good pictures of anthony in the crowd. 
just a lot of this. 
"this" being children sitting on top of each other while their teachers frantically gestured at them while they were singing. 
with parents playing the part of paparazzi. 
in a 123 degree gym. 
. . . it totally brought out my holiday spirit.  

benny came along to help volunteer for the classroom party. 
he helped with the assemble-the-snow-person game.
and then made this face.  

anth's favorite part, of course, was craft time.  

this is ben eyeing the candy table. 
you can guess where the candy table was situated.  

benny's favorite part of the event, of course, was sugar time.  

daddy helping the kids at anth's table. 
precious.  

after volunteering a handful of times in anth's class, i've learned that this is preferred style of sitting at his spot. 
considering he follows almost every rule he has heard spoken, i guess i can deal with a kid who struggles to stay seated. 
bless his heart. 


happy holidays everyone! 
and by that, i clearly mean, enjoy your Memorial Day weekend!

the many emotions of asparagus

so. 
last week. 
the zoo.
i took my camera. 
then came home and uploaded the photos. 
and realized that they went back to december. 
oops.
again. 
i will try to spend the next week or so highlighting some of those to catch you up to speed on the last 6 months of our lives via photo. 
let's start with early december, shall we?


if a picture is worth a 1,000 words, then here are 6,000.
i'm just exactly sure what they are saying. . .

it seems to me that the general 16-word summary would be: 


i think i can. 
i know i can. 
oh no, i can't. 
oh yes, you will. 

fail photo 55 - benny: on chicks

today was a big day for the savvy boy's. 

bern and i chaperoned anth's first grade field trip to the zoo. 

(photos to come. . .)

and benny's classroom had a Chick Party. 

allow me to explain. 

once again, it is chick hatching season in benny's classroom. 

this means that they have a handful of eggs in an incubator in the classroom, that they will be watching for 21 days. 

ben's classroom does this each year, and usually has a chick-hatching party at the end of the process. 

it is all very exciting and the source of much conversation in the classroom and at home. 

last week, little eggs and quotations from each "friend" went up on the classroom walls. 

most of them are either based on anticipation or educational tidbits the kids have picked up/made up about the chicks-in-progress. 

they ranged from statements like, "they will use their beaks to get out when they are ready," and "they will use their little feet to get out," to "it takes 21 days for the chicks to grow."

excited to see what benny had learned, i made my way to his egg. 

and found this:

2 points for imagination. 

not so many points for science. 

it is times like these that i find myself having conversations i could have never imagined. 

. . ."so please, benny, do not, under any circumstances,  put the chicks on the toilet in your classroom. 

little blue folder: goodbye, winter

this little gem of an in-class assignment came home recently in anth's blue folder.

it's the draft of his "letter to Winter."

precious.

 

i concur on the ice storms.

if communication is 80 percent non-verbal...

recently, ben has taken to threatening his friendship in exchange for whatever it is that he has decided he currently wants.

as in, "mommy, if you don't give me a Thin Mint, i'll never be your friend."

recently, at the end of bath time, i told anth it was time to get out.
sweet benjamin turned to me and said, "mommy, if you don't get me out first, i'll never be your friend."
(getting anything first is a high priority to ben right now.)

i told him something along the lines of, "benny, when you say that it makes me sad. can you please ask me that question more nicely?"

ben stood up.
tilted his head severely to the side.
and raised his voice an octave to say, "get me out or i'll never be your friend. please."
then blew me a kiss.

fail photo 56: all the king's horses...

and all the king's men. . .

simply could not reassemble poor Humpty. 


much to ben's chagrin. 
who, after insisting that he LOVED hard-boiled eggs, and promising he would eat it if he unshelled it, discovered that he did not, in fact, love hard boiled eggs.
not even a little.