I Told the Truth

So, remember that old Mormon commercial where the little urban kids are playing baseball in the street and one of them whacks a ball through the curmudgeonly old mans front window. His friends encourage him to run, but he chooses not to. He bursts into song to declare that telling the truth is what he did, and he's very proud of this. The old man softens and they go off to get ice cream and discuss the inner workings of the game of life.

This is more or less exactly what happened a week or so ago when my little boy T busted the window of my parents neighbors house. The part that isn't shown in the commercial is where the dad goes over to offer to pay for the window. Then the neighbor gives the dad's mom the bill for a 4 foot square pane of glass that, with installation, comes to almost $350. And then the dad takes back all his sons Christmas presents in order to teach another life lesson. Ok, so I didn't do that last part, but it did cross my mind. And I'm wondering why it cost $350? I think the guy got scammed, but didn't care because he knew that it actually was I who was being scammed. Not that I'm bitter, but if I knew it was going to cost that much, I would have chucked a few rocks through the window too. But I didn't. And I don't regret it. . .really. . .well, not much at least. But it proves just one thing. Replacing my parents neighbors window has occured, and the one that T broke on the back of our house a couple Easters ago still hasn't. It's kind of a bummer.

In other news of the kids doing things they're not supposed to be doing. A couple days ago they opened a combined 10 or so of their Christmas presents. They put them away after they opened them, so that was nice, but they didn't try to be sneaky about it at all. They just told my wife they did it, and they were very excited about getting the few things they saw. Little E opened her Cinderella Barbie doll and threw a mighty fit when it was taken from her to be rewrapped. But they haven't done it since. Or if they have, they've moved onto step two of the gift sneaking, where you just poke holes in things, or gently tear back around the tape to see what's inside. And just don't go whole hog on it and take all the wrapping paper off. Then throw away the paper, then put the toys away and tell Mom what you've received for Christmas.

One more thing I must mention. T has been playing this rhyming game with us in the car for a long time now, too long really. Where you have to say two words that rhyme, and we take turns rhyming things. It's super fun. Next time you're at home with your family and there's nothing on TV and nowhere to go, play the rhyming game. I'm telling you, it's non-stop fun. So lately, Little E has been trying to get in on the game, but at this point, she hasn't really figured out how to get two words that rhyme. So she'll just say two words that pop into her head, like Puppy, and House. For a while T was trying to rhyme any word he could with 'Hole' like pole, and toll, and whole, and bowl, and foal, and. . .well, you get the idea. So Little E had been taking it upon herself to find a word that rhymed with hole and was very unsuccessful. Now lately in the morning it's been very foggy, and as such, has inspired T to rhyme words with Fog, so he'll say things like, 'Fog and dog' which is a rhyme, or 'Fog and Frog' again, also a rhyme. Well, Little E had been having a hard time rhyming hole, so she thought she'd try it with 'fog'. This obviously doesn't rhyme, however with her 2 and a half year old enunciation skills, when she yells out, "Fog and Hole!" It doesn't sound like fog and hole at all. As a matter of fact, it sounds much more like what you'd call a trampy female. Or perhaps as an insult thrown between women. Yes folks, if you haven't guessed it, she's yelling out something that sounds exactly like, "F#&*ing Ho!!" Which is at the same time hilarious and horrifying. Because I don't want my little girl yelling out this phrase. Of course, she has no idea what she's saying, but once my wife and I started laughing at this, she realized that this phrase got a wonderful response, so she started yelling it out over and over. I'm going to get it on video, and then try to get her to stop saying it. Don't want that one being yelled out in chuch.

The Wanderer

I had ideas to talk about the ongoing saga that is my search for contacts for my eyeballs. Which is still happening, apparently the contact that I'm waiting for was never ordered. I was going to discuss my children opening a bunch of their presents this morning after I left for work and before their mom got up. I was going to talk about how our little kitten has gone from shy, sick little orphan to triumphant, healthy, attacky Bobcat. But then I saw this story in the paper and had to share. And I had to drop in my thoughts as I see them fit. Which shall be placed within these symbols -* *-. And we're off.

Boy, 4, breaks into Texas -*already good*- store, plays with toys

The Associated Press

Posted: 12/15/2008 12:44:45 PM PST

Updated: 12/15/2008 12:49:24 PM PST

BEAUMONT, Texas—Police called to a variety store by a burglar alarm overnight found a toddler inside, playing with the toys. -*como what? *- Police said store surveillance video showed the unidentified boy trying to open one of the front doors to a Family Dollar store -*not to be confused with the Adult Dollar stores*- about 3 a.m. Monday, only to find it locked. -*The dollar store has surveillance video...to stop thieves from stealing the crap found at the dollar stores. *- But the second door was unlocked -*whose responsible for locking the doors? And why weren't they able to lock both of them?*- and the child went inside.

That triggered the silent alarm.-*Again...silent alarm? At the Family Dollar store? WTF? *-

Detective Randy Stevens said the child apparentlyunlocked a door at his nearby home, got out, then crossed a multilane street to reach the store. -*Apparently? Well, he did or he didn't, police work should have been able to ascertain that information. So whose locking the doors at this kids house? Perhaps it's the same person who should have locked up the Family Dollar store?*-

A canvass of the neighborhood turned up a family member searching for the child.-*A family member? Like a second cousin? Who noticed the kid was gone at 3 in the morning? Were they doing a sweep of their house after making their last batch of Meth and discovered, "Hey, didn't we have a small child living here a few minutes ago?*-

CPS spokeswoman Shari Pulliam said Child Protective Services claimed oversight of a 4-year-old boy during a review of the incident. The boy will be allowed to stay with other relatives, not the parents, during the CPS review period.-*Possibly these are the family members who were searching for the child at 3 in the morning!*-

And scene.

It's really a story that warms the cockels of your heart, no? So to make up for those who feel sorry for the kid. (Which I do, but hey, he got to play with toys all by himself for a while. Who didn't have dreams of breaking into a toy store and playing with everything there.) A smile inducing picture of my kids, who haven't yet wandered off into a Family Dollar store. But they did laugh with mirth and joy when they heard about this story.

Graded on a Curve

We made our parent/teacher conference yesterday. And I'm pleased to say that our little guy's doing fine. He's either at or above where he should be except for two little pieces. One is his art, which is mostly because he goes so fast that he's not concerned with neatness. The other is his storytelling abilities can sometimes interfere with the flow of the class. But for the coloring, the teacher said, "He's a boy, though." And when she was talking about the neatness of his handwriting, she said, "He's a boy, though." So I guess because he's a boy, we don't have to worry about neatness. It's possible that's hereditary, however, because if this wasn't typed, you probably wouldn't be able to make it out with the way I write.

So it was a good meeting and all in all, he's doing just as he should be for a Kindergarten student who only spends three and a half hours in class each day. He's not the smelly kid, or the annoying kid, or the bully, or the idiot, or the goofy looking one. He's just another kid in the class who tells some involved stories. And I'm good with that.

Candy Cane

Well boys and girls, it's been a few days now since we've last spoken monitor to monitor. There hasn't been much happening of late. T was throwing rocks over my parents fence and broke one of their neighbor's windows. So I got to be the dad and go over there and meet them and offer to pay for the broken window. Unfortunately they seem to be willing to let me pay for it. I was hoping that they'd say, "Oh, no it's cool. Kids will be kids. Don't worry about it, we were planning on replacing this window anyway." But they didn't. I don't suppose I would either. Of course, this means that we now want to replace the window that T broke a couple Easters ago. That one was from him hitting a small plastic golf ball from across the yard and splintering the outer pane of glass. He managed to put a hole in the outer pane of the neighbor's window. It's a decent hole also.

Also, the cat's feeling better. Or if she's not feeling better she seems to be on the road to recovery. Which is good since I'm almost out of the antibiotic and it seems to have gone bad. I don't know why. But now that I'm thinking about it, maybe I was supposed to keep it in the fridge or something. I dunno. But her eyes aren't nearly as gunky and she's much more energetic now. So all is going well.

I also found out last night that my kids don't like candy canes. T had been working on me to get one off the tree since last Thursday. So I told him that if he was good all weekend and ate all his dinner he could have one. So he ate all his dinner and was pretty good through the weekend, and as such he got his candy cane. And since his little sister can't bear to just watch him eat something, and since this particular candy cane was fairly big. I split it not so evenly for the two of them. Little E took a huge bite of hers and just started chomping away. T was a little more delicate and went the route of trying to make it into a small spear. About five minutes later, T comes over and tells me that he does not, in fact, like candy canes. So he threw it out. Shortly after him, Little E came over and informed me that she also, is not a fan of the candy cane. So now I'm the only one in my house who actually likes candy canes. How strange. I thought all kids would love those things. It's a stick of sugar, what's not to like? But I suppose that it's better that they don't. It's one less thing I have to worry about them trying to sneak while I'm still sleeping on the weekends.