Jack History

One of my coworkers is lobbying for me to record Jack telling his version of American history. If he weren't so camera-shy, I'd TOTALLY do that. Until he loses his stage-fright, this blog will have to do.

If you've kept up with this blog, you'll know that Jack is obsessed with a few things - two of which are history and justice. As a side note, he seems to have caught on to Mommy and Daddy's strengths - as he asks Daddy all of his science questions and me all of his race/history/justice/feeling questions. I'm thrilled to be off the hook for explaining Creation or the Big Bang or where the dinosaurs went, but I do struggle keeping up with his versions of history and the questions that come with them.

We've talked at great length, and with great repetition, about Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, Jr., Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John F. Kennedy, the Civil Rights Movement, and the American Revolution.

Recently, Jack has been confusing all of the stories. He's woven them together in a particularly strange fashion, resulting in statements like "why didn't the African Americans just shoot the ship to get the flag?", which comes from combining the Americans' fight for freedom from the British and the African Americans' fight for freedom from the Man.

This morning we had a particularly lively discussion about "Avraham" Lincoln. It went something like this:

Jack: "If I had been there, I would have held up a piece of wood...with a piece of paper on it...and put it between them so they couldn't shoot at Avraham Lincoln and he'd still be alive. The bow and arrow would have just fallen to the ground."

Me: "Umm, well, that's nice that you'd want to protect him. You're sweet. But it wasn't bows and arrows. It was bullets."

J: "Can they go through wood?"

M: "Yes."

J: "Even really, really strong wood?"

M: "Yes. They can even go through some metal. But it's sweet that you would want to protect him. Good boy."

J: "Well how am I supposed to do THAT then? ... Why didn't anyone stop that man from killing Avraham Lincoln?"

M: "I don't know. But now they have what's called the Secret Service, and that is a bunch of people that go EVERYWHERE with the President. They keep him safe. And they've made a new kind of material to stop bullets."

J: "Why weren't the secretive people there with that stuff to stop the bullets and to help Avraham Lincoln?"

M: "Well, two things. First, they hadn't invented that special material yet. And second, I don't think they HAD a Secret Service before that. I think they made it later."

J: "I would get like 100 or 99 people and surround the President and then no one could get through."

M: "Good idea. And you wanna know something else cool? Whenever President Obama has to drive somewhere, they bring a whole bunch of cars that all look exactly the same. The President gets in one, but all of them drive in a big line to wherever they are going, so if you see it going by, you have no idea which one the President is in. That way anyone who MIGHT want to hurt the President can't get to him."

J: "So if Avraham Lincoln was in one car and there was a whole line up of them and they were all red, I wouldn't know which one Avraham Lincoln was in so I couldn't shoot him."

M: "But you wouldn't shoot Abraham Lincoln anyway."

J: "Right, cuz he's already dead."

Well okay then. That's one reason.

Multiple Choice

Things that have sputtered, smoked, gone missing, and/or flat out died in the last 4 days. You can decide which was which...

1. the coffee grinder
2. the van
3. the keys to my mom's van
4. the snowblower
5. my swimsuit

I Win!

Today I took Jackson down to Northfield. The plan was to see the women's/men's basketball double-header and then go to the retirement party for Leon, the long-time Athletic Director.

In the car, Jack kept asking if we were going to watch football.

Me: "No, it's basketball. We're going to watch basketball games."

Jack: "Why not football?"

M: "Because they don't play football right now."

J: "So what are we going to watch?"

M: "Basketball games."

J: "Mom, when you say 'basketball games' I think you mean two of them. You should just say 'basketball.'"

M: "Yes, Jack, I DO mean two of them. The women play and then the men play."

long pause

J: "I've never SEEN men play basketball."

I win.

Valentine's Day, Banjostrand Style

The silly little stomach bug will NOT leave my family alone. We've all been through it at least once. And now it's raining on my Valentine's Day Parade.

I went to work today and Chuck sent me 3 dozen roses! THREE DOZEN! WEEEEE!!!! So sweet. My office smelled divine. So the day started really well.

Then I wanted to do a yummy dinner with Chuck, but the stupid stomach thing ruined that. I did convince him to go to Noodles with me, so we had a romantic dinner of pasta and Dr. Pepper with the kiddos.

We got home and Chuck needed to lay down. I spent 45 minutes trying to convince Ryker to go poop on the potty. I read him stories, I sang him songs, I made up funny characters that voiced their displeasure at him pooping in his pull-ups - to no avail.

Now I'm playing on the internet while Chuck goes to Walgreens in search of a miracle cure for his tummy.

Do I get a do-over?

Big Work Week and My Kids

I sometimes feel guilty for working as much as I do. I think most working moms feel the same. But looking back on one of my biggest work weeks of the year, I think the kids will be just fine. I now envision them seeing big work weeks on the calendar and brimming with excitement. First of all, I was so tired through the week leading up to my big fundraising gala that I fed the kids a bunch of crap all week for dinner. They, of course, loved this. They had toaster waffles one night, mac n cheese two nights, and I took them to IHOP another night. That's my kids' dream epicurean line-up.

Saturday I had to get all spiffied up for my event. ("Spiffying," in my world, means I showered and shaved, combed my hair and painted my toenails. That's about it. I turned the rest over to Magic Neighbor Nicki, who fixed my hair so it would behave all night.) Chuck took the kids on errands so I could do all of that in peace. They got to run around with him, then got to go to a movie.

Today I needed to sleep, having arrived home at the unholy hour of 3am. I got up at 10:30, played with the kids and helped Chuck get them ready, and went back to bed until 2:30. They went to the zoo. I'll tell you how it went in the voice of Ryker, because it's much cuter that way.

Ryker: "Mommy, we went to the goom (zoo)! We see da monkeys! Monkeys and zeebas and poe bae-z (polar bears). We went goom Momma!" Chuck got amazing pictures, which I don't have on this computer but I'll put up later.

I also anticipated that I wouldn't want to cook tonight, so I pre-ordered a huge meal from Brasa, one of my favorite restaurants. Jack wasn't really feeling well, but Ryker got to enjoy cheesy grits and pulled pork. Yum.

So I don't think the kids are too scarred by my work week. Jack actually seemed to be thoroughly enamored with the concept of event fundraising, and wanted to talk about its finer points all week. For the record, he gets it more than most adults I know.

Plus they got EXTRA loving from me tonight because I missed them. Their cheeks are probably chapped from all the kisses.