April 30, 2008

Chow Chat

We were eating dinner and it was Porter’s turn to draw a card from Table Topics. “Where would you rather live, the mountains or the beach?” he read.

“That’s easy,” Porter said, tucking the card back into the box. “We should live in the mountains because there are too many tsunamis at the ocean.”

“What about mountain lions?” Drew asked.

“We can all fight a mountain lion, but a tsunami would wash us away in, like, a billionth of a nanosecond.”

“If we lived near the ocean we could eat shrimp and crabs and fish every day,” Drew said. “That would be yummy.”

“Aw, man, if we lived at the beach, I’d go to that spray tattoo place and get a barbed wire around one arm, and on the back of my shoulder I’d get a really buff Jesus with a holy light shining all around His head,” Finn said.

“I’d get a SpongeBob tattoo!” Drew yelled.

Bill and I exchanged glances. Finn joined the church last weekend but I didn’t realize his fervor was that strong.

“I’ve never heard of a spray tattoo,” Porter said.

“That’s because you’re an LBR,” Finn told him.

“What does that stand for?”

“Loser beyond repair.”

******************************

Two Years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Coming Apart

April 28, 2008

Drew and Porter Recommend

The boys have discovered some popular new books and toys I thought I’d pass along in case you’re looking for ideas.

If you’d told me both of my third-graders would be devouring Beowulf, I’d have told you that my boys are not child prodigies, and that you had us confused with another family. Maybe one that home-schools.

Kick me in the rear and call me crazy. While Finn was at drums, Bill and the twins spent an hour at the bookstore, where he let each of them pick out a book. Porter was immediately captivated by the cover of Beowulf, which features Grendel looking suitably green and menacing.

Bill tried everything he could to dissuade him, including, “I think it’s written in Ye Olde Englysh” and “I didn’t read that until college, and even then I only made it through because it was required,” but Porter was steadfast in his desire to read “the monster book.”

And he did, in two nights. Then Drew picked it up, and was equally entranced by “the oldest surviving epic in English literature” (yo– Harvard, Yale– are you digging this? Reading Beowulf and scrambling their own eggs!)

I did some detective work and discovered that Kingfisher Epics has a few other works translated for kids at this reading level, and their covers are also eye catching:

I ordered all of them and once the twins stopped fighting over the Trojan horse the house grew silent except for the sound of turning pages.

It turned out that The Iliad was too violent for Porter, our pacifist, as there were too many descriptions of swords severing limbs and decapitating soldiers. He shuddered the other night when Drew busted his head during a pillowfight (that confused me, too) and bled profusely from his room to ours. Skulls are just bleedy (or vascular in medical parlance); the actual wound was the size of a pencil eraser.

Anyway, Porter is now reading King Arthur and is much happier. So far there is less slaughter and bloodshed.

Last night he also confessed that he didn’t see why a woman was worth fighting an entire war over, and Drew agreed, but Finn said, “Guys, when you get into sixth grade you’ll understand it better.”

****************

I’m always plugging Legos and K’Nex and I’m still of the opinion that if you can’t think of anything else to buy a boy between the ages of five and ten, either of these will be a hit. Imagine the boys’ delight when they were confronted with the latest offering from K’Nex– a kit that makes toy cars complete with batteries.

They come in a box that looks like this:

You can make all sorts of contraptions, from the mundane

to the more exotic,

and you can incorporate Legos in the designs as well.

But the toy wouldn’t be perfect unless it could also do this:

Feathers seemed to enjoy the speed. I suppose you could describe this as a birdy dune buggy.

***********

One year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Sergeant Mom Gets Mushy

April 25, 2008

Feathers Friday: Out To Sea

I don’t know of many parakeets who are lucky enough to get private sailing lessons. Yet Feathers holds such an exalted place of honor in our house that damn the cost, she merits a boat and a large body of water in which to maneuver.

Porter thoughtfully provided a Hot Wheels racetrack as a nearby perch in case it took Feathers a moment to get her sea legs. That was good thinking; Feathers took a couple of dunks before Porter realized that it would be better for Feathers to experience floating on pond-like conditions rather than the churning waters of the open sea.

It didn’t stop there. Next Feathers got to ride through her very own Tunnel of Love.

Although she traveled solo, it was good practice for the day she and her lover are overcome with passion and want to sail away in the moonlight.

The Tunnel of Love ends with a promontory where the passengers can disembark and enjoy the view.

In this case, the view is of the back side of the shower curtain and part of the toilet, but when you spend most of your day confined to a cage, that’s a riveting sight.

But the sailing lessons and the Tunnel of Love are only the beginning of the adventures Porter has in store for Feathers.

She still hasn’t tried out the high dive.

***********************

One year ago in My Tiny Kingdom: Depressing Thought of the Day

April 23, 2008

Venn Diagram: Soccer and Society

It’s been a while since I did a Venn diagram for you, and I’m not sure I can end it all with a penis joke as I did last time. I’ll let my subconscious work on that while I relate the thought-provoking details of this weekend’s soccer extravaganza.

There was a lot of soccer played by kids of all ages and genders in the Tiny Kingdom this weekend. While I don’t know whether anyone’s soccer skills improved, I do know that many life lessons were learned.

Porter and Drew’s soccer team played in their first tournament. Sunday’s game looked more like a Wrestling Smackdown than a soccer game. The other team was coached to play dirty, and they followed instructions well. Our goalie, who’s built like a solid fireplug, was mauled several times, and bears cleat-patterned bruises all over his body.

“Ah!” you say, “where was the referee during all of this?”

He was out on the field but served no useful purpose, as he failed to call improper throw-ins, hand balls, and goalie abuse. Apparently there were other violations which would have resulted in players getting a red card which means you are out of the game– sit on the bench immediately! but I don’t know enough about soccer to know what those rules were. The only reason I learned about hand balls is that for a time it looked like the other team had mistakenly shown up for a volleyball tournament.

The boys were understandably upset after their loss.

“They didn’t play fair,” some said.

“Why didn’t the ref call it when they shoved us?” others wondered.

But you know, in my view a big part of sports is to use them to teach the kids about life. It’s easy to teach them how to win. It’s more challenging to show them how to lose with dignity and shake the hands of the other team when tears are streaming down their faces.

There are few opportunities as blatant as this to teach one of the most important lessons of all: Life Isn’t Fair.

We can get up in the ref’s face. We can write a letter of protest and ask that this ref not be assigned to our team again, but none of this changes the loss to a win. Life Isn’t Fair, and it never will be.

Meanwhile, the females were learning lessons of their own about the intersection of sports and social engagements. There are four elementary schools in the Tiny Kingdom. A couple of sixth-grade girls at one of the other schools threw a boy-girl gala Friday night. That hasn’t happened at our school yet, but perhaps this school is maturing more quickly.

It was inevitable; the big bash coincided with a girls’ soccer game Friday night, throwing the players’ mothers into a tizzy I don’t envy. Reactions varied. Some girls who were dying to party skipped the game. Others wanted to do the same, but were reminded that they’d made a prior commitment to the team, and that both manners and character required that the first engagement be honored. Still others were thankful that the game was taking place so they didn’t have to attend the party and hang out with nasty boys. They see them enough at school anyway.

It’s doubtful I’d have been playing soccer in the 6th grade. Even if I had, I’d have been begging my mom to ditch the game in favor of the party, but I doubt she’d have given in. I’d have been clad in shin guards instead of a miniskirt, sulking all over that soccer field.

That, I presume, is why God gave me boys.

Boys who experiment with gender roles, but boys nonetheless.

Finn, age 2, laden with jewelry

Porter, age 4, trying desperately for curls

Drew, age 2, in princess shoes

***********************

I wouldn’t leave you without a penis joke after that buildup, would I?

For a while, John Wayne and Lorena Bobbit were talking about getting back together– after “the episode.” Their friends were mystified. Finally, while discussing it at length at the coffee shop one morning, an old fellow concluded, “Well, maybe he’s just not such a complete dick anymore.”

*********************

Three years ago in My Tiny Kingdom: The New Me

(I wrote this several months before I was to have my annual HepC test five years after my interferon treatment had ended. I’d been in remission, and the word was that if you stayed in remission for five years, you could call yourself “cured.” To see how it ended, you can click here.)

April 18, 2008

Haiku Me!

I rarely win things, but I’ve been named a finalist over at Rocks in my Dryer in the Haiku about my mom contest.

Am I the only one whose mother haunts me about my haircolor? You should hear what my dead grandmother whispers in my ear every time I pop a piece of chewing gum in my mouth. (”It’s so unbecoming, dee-ah.”)

Anyway, at least help me make a respectable showing. And my haircolor is Loreal Coleur Experte 6.3. You know you want it. (Sorry, Mom.)

Just for kicks, I’ve added a picture of me at my (fake) blondest:

May 1992 - Law School Graduation (yes, that’s Bill’s tassel hanging over my head) (Ooh - didn’t mean that the way it sounded) with my DARK roots and BIG earrings

and a picture of me this past summer

Luv ya 6.3!

You can have whatever opinion you want about my HAIR - it’s the haiku I need the votes on.

Go here to vote - I’m the second circle. Thanks!