Video A-Go-Go

Here goes Ryker...

And here is Jack's music review...Dan Auerbach ("Hourbox" according to Jack), The Black Keys, Mr. Big, and the lesser known group "Polio." (He means Poison. Oddly close though, don't you think?)

Boredom

I used to have this problem when I was a kid. I would get SOOOO bored. And even if my friends were over, we'd get SOOOOO bored together. My mom used to always tell my best friend Vicki and I to go to the art museum and we'd scoff at her. Sort of ironic that I now go to an art museum every day, don't you think. Karma?

Anyway, I was driving home the other day sans kids and I got stopped at a red light that is notoriously long. And I used to get stopped there and get SOOOO bored. Sitting a whole of 90 seconds was just too much for me. But this time I immediately reached for my iPhone and started reading Tweets. (Did the Olds all get confused just now?) I was excited to be sitting at the light because I knew I had time to get caught up on my "reading." And as I was reading I was thinking that my phone should really be given a name, because it is my friend now. (I'm taking suggestions....)

And then a thought popped in to my head.

"I will never be bored again."

My rationale is was between kids, husband, boyfriend (kidding! sheesh) friends, family, work, sports, and now MY PHONE - complete with Twitter, Facebook, this blog, other people's blogs, Scramble and the NYT Crossword puzzle - I will never have another time where I'm searching for something to do or think about.

To be honest, I was a little weirded out by that spontaneous thought. Isn't it okay to have down-time? Can my down-time include all of my social networking and technology obsessions? It's relaxing to me, so doesn't that count? But does every second of my day need to have an activity assigned to it? It's the complete opposite of meditation (which I'm really interested in) - isn't it?

Thoughts?

Fern's DNA

Our children are blessed (and cursed?) with a varied gene pool. We have musicians, artists, teachers, scientists, pilots, techy-nerds (I mean people with a high technical aptitude), lawyers, athletes, doctors, craftsmen and theologians. Most of the people in our family have several of these gifts (Chuck - if I can use him as an example and brag at the same time - is a great singer, great photographer, has a great mind for science and technology and has a freakish ability to tinker with/fix/build almost anything.).

It's been so much fun to watch Jack and his growing interests. He seems to have received the musical gene ("Momma, I'm a very good microphone player."), teacher gene ("Here is how you do dat - do you wanna twy?), and handyman gene ("Look at dat truck! Look at dose tools!"). I'm sure others will come forward later.

Ryker is starting to show his as well. The most noticeable one thus far? His Great Grandmother Fern's finger waggle. When he's feeding he will point a finger and wave it at me. If he picks up a cane I'm going to have to get therapy.

Why

Subtitle: A list of questions currently occupying space in my brain.

• Why do boys find insects/creepy-crawling-things so funny? In our house, whenever a person audibly passes gas, Chuck and Jack yell "Who let in the barking spiders?!" which I don't even understand. They also have a running joke about eating worms.
• Why are mirrors confusing? Jack should understand them by now, but asked me at a birthday party yesterday how he gets "there" - pointing in the mirror at a game that was right next to him.
• Why do babies hate having their diapers changed?
• Why do squirrels need to eat our bird food? Can't they find enough food on their own?
• Why is Jack obsessed with listing things that "only Mommy can do" or "only Daddy can do"? And why is my list so much shorter?
• Why can kids spin around and not get dizzy but I take 3 turns and need to hold on to something? Same thing with somersaults.
• Why do servers put knives and hot plates in front of my children? Do they teach them to do that to separate the parents that are paying attention from the ones that aren't? Are they undercover Children and Family Services employees?
• Why can't children sit still? Ever? If you watch Jack closely - he NEVER stops moving. Even if he's sitting down, he's moving his feet or bobbing his head. When do we outgrow that?
• Why do kids want to carry cats around? And why do they think it's best to hold them under their armpits so their front legs are sticking straight out in front of them?

I Dreamed a Dream

I'm not sure what this says about me, but last night I had a dream that Barack Obama was chilling in our living room.

He was wearing those black nylon workout pants and gray t-shirt that they always show him in and he was just lounging on our couch. I was really nervous about how to talk to him, but he was very funny and easy-going.

I told him he should rest because he probably doesn't get to do that very often. He told me that he'd take a bowl of ice cream and a blanket if I had them. I rushed into the kitchen and found that I had the end of a pint of Ben and Jerry's. I told him that he's lucky that he's Barack Obama because otherwise I'd never give the last of my ice cream away. I gave him the bowl of ice cream and then was faced with a dilemma. He wanted a blanket and I had two. One was a small fleece blanket that I worried was maybe too small - more of a "throw" or whatever. The other was my beloved Slanket, about which I endure endless teasing from everyone who knows I have one (except Beth, who gave it to me). I opted for the small fleece one because I couldn't handle the thought of President Obama doubling over in hysterics at my precious Slanket. I tossed it over his legs and handed the bowl of ice cream over, and he settled in.

I believe others were in the room too - I think Chuck was there and I'm pretty sure my mom was sitting behind the couch at the dining room table - which we refer to as the Play-Doh table because that's all we ever use it for. I told my mom that this morning and she replied "because of course I'd be playing with Play-Doh while the president sat in your living room."

Move Over John Millman

Jack has a new favorite answer to any "Who" question.

Example 1:
Mommy: "And who comes tonight to hide our eggs?"
Jackson: "Al Fwanken?"

Example 2:
Mommy: "Whose picture is this on the penny?"
Jackson: "Al Fwanken?"
M: "No buddy, that's Abe Lincoln."
J: "Right. He da one dat dieded? By a gun?"
M: "Yes, that's right."
J: "Why not Al Fwanken?"

The Agnostic Bunny

There are a few days a year that I'm reminded of the lack of organized religion in our house. Easter is one of them. First of all I generally have no idea when Easter is. I only realize it's coming when I start seeing pastel colors and bunny-things in the stores. This time when I realized it was coming Chuck and I decided that we were going to do the egg dying and hiding routine. Chuck went to the store Friday to get our (I mean the Easter Bunny's) supplies. I sent him for baskets and some treats.


I guess the economic downturn trumps our desire to adhere to the usual Easter festivities because Chuck decided that $10 was a lot to spend on a basket, so he came home with two pastel colored gift bags. "What the heck are we going to do with those?!" I said. "Jack can use them to collect the eggs" Chuck replied.


Okay. So yesterday I decided to introduce this whole subject to Jack. It went something like this:


Mommy: "Jackson, guess what tomorrow is?"
Jackson: "Huh?"
M: "Easter. And so today we need to dye some eggs."
J: "Why is dying?"
M: "Well that word has two meanings - one is when someone isn't living anymore and the other is when you want to color something." (Thinking that this conversation is not starting out well.)
J: "Huh?"
M: "Never mind. Anyway, we're going to dip eggs into some colors and then leave them for the Easter Bunny."
J: Blank stare.
M: "And then do know what happens? The Easter Bunny comes tonight and he hides those eggs for you."
J: "WHY?!"
M: "Umm, I guess because he's silly. So we need to leave them for him so he can hide them for you tonight so you can find them tomorrow."
J: "Why do we do that on Easter?"
M: "I don't really know. We just do."


Not a single mention of Jesus. First, because we have never talked about Him before. And second, because I really have no idea what He has to do with a gigantic bunny that sneaks into your house at night. Or art projects with eggs. Or hide and seek with eggs.

Well, we dyed them anyway and then put puffy paint on them. It was in the kit. And then we left them out. After the kids were in bed and we had had a few adult beverages, we set off to hide the eggs. Chuck had brought home six large plastic eggs that have Matchbox cars in them, and four smaller eggs that have Play-Doh in them. We put Kisses in with the cars and then hid all of them. I reached for the real eggs and started to hide them too, but Chuck looked really nervous. He thought Tugboat might eat them or they might break. Instead, we put them in a bowl and wrote a note from the Easter Bunny to Jackson.

This morning countless Americans got up, grabbed their Easter baskets, hunted for their dyed eggs and then got cleaned up and went to church. We got up, grabbed our gift bags and hunted for plastic car-holding eggs. Then we stayed in our pajamas, played on Twitter and put grease on our bird feeder to try to keep the squirrels off.

So here's my question (if you are still reading this - maybe you gave up already) - if we aren't willing to do the religious part of Easter, should we not do the fun part either? I guess we do Christmas, but that seems a bit easier to rationalize. We're around lots of family at that time and it gets talked about a lot more than Easter does. I feel a little like a fair-weather fan. When the boys get older I think we'll tell them what some people believe happened today, and that we celebrate Easter in a little different way (gift bags and Twitter and squirrel-tormenting) but we respect other people's beliefs on this day. But by those standards, shouldn't we also do something for Passover, or Kwanzaa? What does your family do?

As a side-note, I encourage all of you to listen to David Sedaris' story about the Easter Bunny. It's one of the funniest things I've ever heard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5apZmwR9UI