My nephew wrestlers for a small college in Arkansas. Along with some high school wrestlers we know, he visits during the summer months. The kids really enjoy this. Recently, Jr. became interested in wrestling. He has been really excited about starting. The other day he was telling DP about it. "I am going to start wrestling.", Jr told him. I was excited about this and would like DP to wrestle as well. DP really likes choir and the wrestling in our area is on Wednesdays, the same as choir. Therefore, he isn't that interested. So after telling DP he was starting wrestling, he say "I am taking wrestling so I can beat the crap out of you!" I thought he would take it because he loved it, because he wanted to challenge himself, because he wanted to be active, but I underestimated the desire of a sibling to beat the crap out of his bigger brother. Oh well, we all have our reasons and this is as good as any. Some times the reason isn't that important.
Several of you may know that the three subjects are very busy subjects. The busiest is probably DP. He plays football three days a week, has a game one day a week, does gymnastics one day a week, and goes to choir on Wednesday nights. Lu just finished her busy season with practice for "Annie" in which she played the dog catcher. That was three days a week and she has aerial arts two days a week. Now Jr, he is still working on finding his thing. He really likes gymnastics and does that two days a week. Otherwise, he hasn't found a sport he likes. We tried football, but he would rather be the coach and blow the whistle. We tried baseball, but although he was a natural, he didn't like it. My nephew wrestlers for a small college in Arkansas. Along with some high school wrestlers we know, he visits during the summer months. The kids really enjoy this. Recently, Jr. became interested in wrestling. He has been really excited about starting. The other day he was telling DP about it. "I am going to start wrestling.", Jr told him. I was excited about this and would like DP to wrestle as well. DP really likes choir and the wrestling in our area is on Wednesdays, the same as choir. Therefore, he isn't that interested. So after telling DP he was starting wrestling, he say "I am taking wrestling so I can beat the crap out of you!" I thought he would take it because he loved it, because he wanted to challenge himself, because he wanted to be active, but I underestimated the desire of a sibling to beat the crap out of his bigger brother. Oh well, we all have our reasons and this is as good as any. Some times the reason isn't that important.
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Last week I went to a conference. In my hotel room, there was a bag of goodies left for me. Since I didn't eat any of the items, I took them home. In the bag, there were M & M's, cookies, popcorn and a few other things. So, yesterday while going to gymnastics, Lu picked up a snack, the cookies, from the table to eat while in the car. I am assuming that SuperMom or the boys had already claimed the M & M's. The special thing about these cookies is that they are milk free, egg free, and gluten-free. So Lu ate the first one, and then started the second one. After chewing on it for a second, she stated "I now see why people like milk and eggs in their cookies". It was the way that she said it that was the funny part. Apparently, milk-free, egg-free, and gluten-free means taste-free in her eyes. Our family comedian has been working overtime lately. Bad thing is the more Jr thinks he is funny, the more he tries to be. Being in the medical field along with SuperMom, we try to explain medical things as they are. So recently I was scheduled to have a colonoscopy. Since you are not able to eat the day before, of course the topic came up. "Dad, why aren't you eating?". "Because I have to have this procedure tomorrow and my stomach needs to be empty", etc was my reply. Of course this leads to more questions and more questions. Answers range from "looking at the inside of your stomach region with a camera" to "just to make sure everything is ok". The camera part must have stuck out. Yesterday at dinner, which by the way was a month since the procedure, Jr says "Dad do you have the pictures from the camera they put up your butt?". I simply replied No!, while he laughed as hard as he could. Never did I think my life would become what it has. Oh well, at least he keeps me awake. The other day SuperMom, Lu, and Jr went to the local pizza shop to pick up some food for dinner. DP and I were at football practice. It seems like we are there a lot these days. So while waiting on the food to be finished, Jr had to use the restroom and went into the small restroom in the pizza shop. Very quickly, he exited the restroom. To that SuperMom told him to go back into the restroom and wash his hands. Jr asked how she knew he hadn't washed his hands. SuperMom explained that he was in and out too fast to have washed his hands, so he went back in. However, very quickly he exited and said he didn't have to wash his hands. Eager to hear why he didn't have to, SuperMom asked him why. Jr replied that there was a sign in the restroom that said "Employees must wash their hands prior to going back to work". Jr was sure he wasn't an employee and thus didn't have to wash his hands. Needless to say, Super Mom straightened him out on this. I may have told this one before, but am not sure and figured it would make everyone laugh. My three subjects have blondish hair. Lu has dirty blonde straight long hair, Jr has wavy reddish-brownish-blondish hair, and DP has straight thin blonde hair. Jr does nothing with his hair and usually doesn't want SuperMom to style it either. Lu does what preteens do. DP however is a hair person. He likes to have it cut different ways and style it different ways. He currently has it cut in a mohawk and likes to stick it up and some times paint it blue. I assume he gets the color thing from a wrestler he knows that is in high school. DP really likes him and thinks he is cool and thus likes to do things he does with his hair. Thing 1 (the wrestler) also has a mohawk and dyes the spike blue. I don't mind the subjects doing pretty much what they want with their hair. However, when DP was younger, his hair was extremely long on top and looked kinda girly to me. See SuperMom loves DP's hair and never wanted to get it cut. So I was getting my hair cut, and I wanted DP to get his cut too. Therefore, I asked him if he wanted to go with me to get his hair cut. Of course he said, no. I then replied that you have very long hair and usually boys have shorter hair and girls have long hair. To this argument which I thought would get him to cut his hair, DP replied "Jesus had long hair". I replied "You can't argue with Jesus", so he didn't get his hair cut. Now that he looks like a true boy, I let him cut his hair as he wants. My theory is "hair is only hair" and as long as you get good grades and act like you have some respect, who cares how you want to look. I have added a photo of me when I was 18 so you all can laugh and maybe see why I can't say too much. Man, I miss all that hair. Last night while having dinner with the subjects we had some interesting conversation. Dinner was roasted chicken and baked potatoes for everyone except DP and Jr. They had sandwiches. DP had a grilled cheese sandwich, while Jr had a ham and cheese. No one eats until we are all at the table and reading to eat. So Jr pipes up before we are all there, that he needs to eat a bite of his sandwich to check to see if it is poisoned. Funny thing is he made his own sandwich. I should have known then that dinner was going to be odd. I asked Lu if she had any homework. To which she replied that she didn't know. At that point I became an old man and said "back in my day, we had to do this thing called write it down and thus when asked if we had homework, we were able to remember if we had written anything down that day". She replied with some voodoo pre-teen comment that got me confused. Any way about five minutes later, she stated that "have you ever noticed that "back in our day" is used a lot by people". Without a reply she then asked some obscure question. To which I replied "they have this thing called Google where you can just type in the question and get the answer. Back in my day, Google was a set of encyclopedias that were ten years out of date because we were too poor to buy new ones". SuperMom then added that they had a set but bought them one per month. so when she had a project like on Presidents, she picked Adams or Carter or someone else in the few books she had at the time. I said, I couldn't do Carter, because my set was before he was president. Lu of course thought this was hilarious. However, SuperMom added that the salesman that sold them their set was very good and did what he called a magic trick with the Atlas. He showed her how you can look up the place in the encyclopedias and it gave you the coordinates and then you could find it on the Atlas. Without blinking, Lu replied "Is that a magic trick for dummies?". Now I think that is hilarious. Oh well the problems of the pre-information highway no smart phone generation. Last night while setting at the table, Jr stated he knew how to spell dumb. Funny thing about Jr is that he hides his intelligence. You would think by first impression, that things might not be registering. However, Jr is very bright, especially in logical topics like math. He is a time savant. He can figure out how many minutes we have until we arrive and is fascinated with tracking the time. He also is great at solving math problems and has started his multiplication tables. Remember he is in first grade. Now spelling and reading is not is strongest subjects but things have started to click for him. I guess that guy who talked about genetics might have been on to something, since reading and spelling still haven't clicked for me. So last night he was spelling things and said he knew how to spell the word dumb. He totally butchered the word and we tried to explain it to him. Now earlier in the week he told SuperMom that she was "C -Y O U- T". As SuperMom retold the story, Lu and I laughed. Then we started talking about the biceps "guns" that DP had. See he flexed for some reason and it was impressive for an 8 year old. Lu then say, have you seen the "definiteness" of my legs. Now SuperMom and I are really laughing. Apparently, she is impressed by her leg definition. Some times, I am not sure of what we are talking about, but I am still usually amused. Three accidental comedians. Today was the day the subjects had to return to school. It was a long and fun-filled vacation for the little ones. They spent 16 days not thinking about school. As usual when school is in, SuperMom and I got up at 7ish and helped Jr and DP get ready for school. I took them down to the bus stop at 8:00 am and they went off to school. The abnormal behavior this morning was Lu. First she was up when I got up. That is amazing, since the pre-teen, teenager gene has been activated in her and she normally tries to sleep until noon. Not only was she up, but she was singing and talking 90 to nothing like a crackhead on a high. Finally, after wasting as much time as possible before heading off to school, Lu went and grabbed her book bag in order to head to the bus. She commented that her book bag smelled. SuperMom asked if she had left food in there because it smelled so badly. Lu looked through the bag and realized that she had not left food in the bag. Instead, it was her gym (PE) clothes that she brought home to be washed 16 days ago. Now these have remained balled up, probably at the bottom of the bag for 16 complete days. Additionally, she only brings them home once a week. I bet she was a pleasure to partner with in gym today. She never thinks about school unless you make her. Out of sight, out of mind for sure. Yesterday was my beautiful, funny, kind, and talented daughter's birthday. Lu turned 12. It doesn't seem like it was 12 years ago that I rushed SuperMom to the hospital in a snow storm and then waited for hours until the magical time of 4:26, when she arrived. As you may know, Lu is my only daughter and she has totally adopted all of the girly stuff. At 12 going on 30, she is all girl. So it has become the time in her life that she likes to go shopping for clothes (I didn't know there was a shopping gene that apparently only women have and it gets activated around 12 years of age), getting make-up, always talking about everything, getting her nails done, and all of the other girly things. So yesterday for her birthday, SuperMom took Lu and the two boys (they are all out of school every year on Lu's B'day) around to different places that she wanted to do. One of these things was getting a manicure and a pedicure. I really think it is more for SuperMom than for Lu, but oh well. So yesterday, the four of them went to the nail salon. Before they were called back, SuperMom wanted to see who all was getting their nails done. DP was asked but said he didn't want to; he would set up front and wait. SuperMom asked multiple times, but he repeatedly replied with "No, he would wait". SuperMom explained that he could get clear nail polish on his nails, and it would not stand out, or he could just get his nails cut and whatever else they do to your hands and feet other than polish them. Still, he said no he would wait. So, SuperMom, Lu, and Jr all went back to get there nails done. After a few minutes, SuperMom went up front to double check on DP. DP as you might know has not fully embraced his tough side and tends to be more emotional that most boys of his age. He was up front trying not to cry. So Supermom, asked him what was wrong. Of course he was upset because he wasn't getting his nails done. So she said, I asked you multiple times but you kept saying no. To this he replied, "I kinda want to have them do my feet, but my feet stink and I don't want them to smell them". SuperMom explained the washing part and that it would be ok, so of course DP got his feet done. So, I am thinking this should be a life lesson for my football player. Either, you wear socks like I have told you a thousand times, or you toughen up. So yes, I have four people at my house with freshly done nails. Jr, has red, white and blue finger nails, and solid blue toe nails. Lu has her usual colors and DP has clear toe nail polish on his freshly pampered feet. In a million years, I would never had thought it. Now I can't wait to get the credit card bill for this. As anyone who has seen a cartoon movie in the past ten years can tell you, these movies are not just for the kids any more. They have some subtle adult humor laced throughout the movie. I assume to keep the parents of the kids entertained as they have to bring their kids to these movies. If the parents find them funny, then they will be more willing to bring "little Johnny" to the movie. This is also true for the movie that SuperMom took Lu, DP, and Jr to yesterday. Lu is now at the age that she understands these kid movie jokes. DP usually does as well, although he doesn't really get jokes in general. Jr can't be bothered with figuring out those jokes. He is too busy thinking of his own. Ask mentioned previous, after repeating herself three times and finally explaining it to me, I thought they were going to see "The Good Dinosaur" yesterday. However, they went to see Alvin and the Chipmunks. There is a scene in the movie where one of the chipmunks is holding some acorns. Another chipmunk looks at the acorn holding one and says "... I'll hit you in your nuts.". To this Lu laughs a little, and you can see the wheels start turning in DP's head. He then asks SuperMom, what is he referring to? To which SuperMom said, "I believe he is referring to the acorns he is holding. Why?" DP then starts to fumble through explaining that "nuts is some times used to talk about down there" as he points downward. He then smiles like he finally gets the joke. Black and White, no gray. That boy makes me laugh without trying. He reminds me of Sheldon all the time. |
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April 2018
CategoriesAuthorPracticing medical physicist trying to raise three kids in the south. |