You Better Watch Out...

Remember when you were little and the holidays were on the horizon and that meant that somewhere there was a stash of presents?  A stash you were determined to find.  So, you would rush home from school to snoop around.  You would search the house when your parents were busy.  You would nearly get caught a dozen times.  That is sooo old school!  My friends, the art of present sleuthing has changed. 

How do I know this?  Because nearly every Monday through Friday I spend a portion of my day in my son's 4th grade class.  I'm not paid for this.  Believe it or not, it is by choice and not some court mandated community service.  The kids look forward to me showing up - even if it does mean studying vocabulary.  I'm novel because I am not their teacher.  I'm non-threatening because I don't give out grades.  They love to talk, to brag, to spill their secrets.  They naively view me as a friend instead of the parental spy that I really am.

Today we were talking about the holidays and what gifts they are hoping to receive.  A few kids divulged that they had already found out what they were getting.  Did they go the traditional route of snooping in closets and under beds?  Rummaging through the garage and basement?  Checking the trunk of the car?  Looking in the attic?  Of course not, people!  This is the information age.  You're kids are digging in your computer!  And they know where to look.  They are launching all the browsers.  They are checking out your history to see what sites you have been on.  They are scouring your search engines to see what you have been researching.  They know that you have been comparing electronic readers.  They are even attempting to log on to your UPS account to view tracking notices in hopes of seeing which stores are shipping to you.  Fortunately, they seem to respect that email is off-limits.  And they reported that they do get stymied by those pesky user names and passwords.  But it's only a matter of time.  You have been warned. 

It's all Greek to him

"An owl?" bemoaned the boy infatuated with Greek gods.

"Is there a problem with that?"

"Well, it's just that the owl is the symbol of Athena.  Couldn't you make it a flaming hammer instead?"

"No, I cannot top the tree with a flaming hammer."

"OK.  Well, what about a trident?" 

 

Finally, he was won over by the awesomeness that is the Folkmanis Snowy Owl hand puppet. 

Appropriately enough, he named her Athena. 

Fly, Athena, fly!!!!

No Charlie Brown tree for us

Our tree this year is ginormously fat.  At least for us it is.  It barely fits into our "Christmas tree spot" spot.

This year's weather in the great Christmas Tree Farming state of North Carolina has been ideal for tree growing.  That has led to an abundance of big FAT Fraiser firs.  No skinny happening here.  Get one of these babies and you might have to send your loved ones out on a "not so cold because it is NC" Winter's night to attempt to buy more strands of lights for the tree.  [Sorry. Thank you. At least it wasn't cold or rainy.  Right?]

Our tree is brushing the walls and still comes out 7 feet from the corner.  I measured it.  Then took a picture.  I realize that makes me a dork.

In case you had any doubt that I was talking about a real tree, here's the proof.  Yay!  Pine needles all over the carpet.  




 





We had to move a chair, the rug, and the coffee table.  It officially has its own room.

We get our tree from a small Christmas tree farm about 4 blocks away.  The folks there jack our kids up on hot chocolate, marshmallows and candy canes while we are preoccupied with choosing the perfect tree.  Then we pay 3x as much as we would have if we had gone to some kind of Super-Depot-Mart.  There are plenty of things I end up acquiring at a Super-Depot-Mart, I'd rather not buy my holiday cheer there as well.  Plus, if I had a Christmas tree farm and they didn't, I'd sure love it if they bought their tree from me.  But I don't, and they do, so see how that works out?

They have a sign as you leave telling you to have a TREEmendous holiday.  I think it is perfectly retro/cheesy.  

 

Snorkeling Q & A

After returning from a recent vacation, I was talking with the mom of one of my son's best friends.

"You took your kids snorkeling?"

Snorkeling over a stingray

"yup"

"At the beach?"

"Starting from shore. And off a boat."

"You were out in the ocean?"

"yup"

"But they could touch the bottom?"

"no"

"So they wore life jackets?"

"no"

"How did they float?"

It's not that her 9 year old son doesn't swim.  He has even been on a swim team.  Our boys roughhouse in a swimming pool with a deep end.  His family spends summer vacation at the beach.   [Although during this conversation she revealed to me that she is only comfortable letting him play in the surf.]

I'll admit, the thought never crossed my mind that the kids should wear flotation devices.  For a fleeting moment, I thought I had dropped the parental ball. This other mom seemed shocked and concerned that we would swim with our kids in the ocean, and away from the shore, and with no "floaties."  She had me briefly questioning my behavior.  But my kids are strong swimmers. And we didn't just throw them a snorkel and mask and let them rush to the water [They probably would have preferred this.] It was actually a great opportunity to teach them some skills.  Hopefully in a few years we'll all be scuba diving together.  I don't feel we were irresponsible.  I do, however, believe I unintentionally ensured her child would never be vacationing with us.

"It's much easier to float in salt water.  Anyway, wearing a life jacket would prevent them from diving deeper for a closer look at the barracuda."

Handwriting confessions

I went to a new dentist this week.  (I first wrote "I started seeing a new dentist this week."  But that sounded as if we were dating, which we're not.  So I changed it.)  He was looking over my x-rays and chart, saying things like "This looks really nice" and "Wow.  Fantastic." Then he turned to me and said, 

"I always admire people who have nice handwriting." 

????   

I think he meant smiles.

"You really do have very nice handwriting."

There!  He said it again!  He was supposed to be complementing me on my beautiful pearly whites - not my handwriting.  I was nearly offended.  Not really.

"Did you study architecture or graphic design ?" 

No, no, I'm not an architect or graphic designer.  I'm a lefty.  Chances are, deep down somewhere, I am compensating. For all those years of insanely backward slanting letters.  And smudges on my papers.  Besides, the alternative is not good.   If I had written in cursive everyone would have been gathered around my new patient form trying to decipher what it said.  Myself included. 

I print.  All in caps.  Orderly measured capital letters.  This is for the best.  Because when I don't, my writing tends to look like this:

What the heck are those giant horizontal loops?  Yes, that is English.  I pulled that sample out of an old stack of papers.  I believe the second word is shove or shine or shore or there or possibly shame?  Maybe ahem?   OK, that's reaching.  It gets worse.  Below is a note I wrote to myself in high school.  It was a reminder of some sort.  I cut it out and taped it in a scrapbook back in my "brutally cut things out and tape them randomly into a scrapbook" phase.  I keep thinking that someday it will all become clear:

 I have NO idea what it says. 

To all of you with truly beautiful handwriting, I tip my hat to you.