It's Twoo! It's Twoo!

I've done so much shoveling this winter that I'm actually getting some muscle tone, I think. Didn't even break a sweat this morning, and didn't feel too put out clearing away six inches or so of the white stuff at 5am, even though it was wet and heavy underneath the fluffy stuff. Now what will I do in the spring to stay toned? Hmm.

Maybe We Should Risk Bruised Fruit After All

Some weeks ago, a friend sent me a link about an amusing product named Banana Guard. A banana shaped container keeps your fruit safe when transporting it to and from the office, etc. Amusing on the face of it, yes, but I do put bananas in Tupperware or Rubbermaid containers when giving them to the kids for school, because they get crushed if I don't. Ever wipe banana slime out of the inside of a soft lunchbox? Ewwww.

Anyway, I checked out the website (http://www.bananaguard.com/) and decided to order a couple. Not bad on price ($27 all told) considering they were shipped from Canada. And, they work! They're sort of shaped like boomerangs to account for the variation of curvature of the average banana. Pretty cool design, if you ask me. I started using the banana guards this week, after the kids returned to school after the mid winter recess.

ANYhoo, Son #1 calls me today from play rehearsal; they get about 15 minutes of downtime (including snack time) between the end of the school day and the start of rehearsal. He loves bananas as a mid afternoon nosh (as do I) and had one today. He complained to me that some of the other "play kids" said that the banana guard looks like a dildo. Then he waited for me to say something. I guessed that he didn't know what a dildo was, but didn't want to 'fess up directly. Bingo.

So we got that quick explanation over with. And then I advised him to tell his friends that if they feel like getting frisky with a boomerang, they would be welcome to -- but THIS one doesn't have batteries and all it does is guard against bruised fruit. Hopefully he'll laugh this off. Or he'll acquire an embarrassing nickname. Flip a coin?

Exile

We had a new experience last night. It was no longer good enough to send a kid to his room. This time a kid was sent out of the house until morning. Luckily Grandma only lives three miles away, and she was agreeable to having a houseguest until 0630 when she has to get ready for work.

Apparently the two older kids "got into it" again on the bus, coming home from play rehearsal after school, and the antagonism continued at home. Son #2 had sat down at the computer, ready to type in a homework assignment, and had pulled over an end table to use for his books. The eldest didn't want him to use the table, and a struggle ensued. It's not clear whether the table was thrown or just slammed down, but it was cleanly broken in two pieces.

It was rough to take Son #1 over to my mom's last night, after he had dinner and had showered, but this was the culmination of many skirmishes and disagreements either started or fueled by his snarky supremacist attitude toward his brothers. It has already come to blows before, but this was the first time something in the house was destroyed. The table could easily have gone through the television, a wall, or a window. Enough was enough.

We find it troublesome that the older two are sometimes home by themselves for a while in the afternoon, so we felt we had to set a precedent for ramped up consequences. Apparently it's not enough to remind them that they've got to establish strong bonds with their brothers because we have a small family and their grandparents and parents are going to be dead someday. Arggh. Let's see whether anything changes now.

I will say this: for the short while I saw my eldest this morning, he was demure and conciliatory. And his brothers seemed happy to see him. Well, that was a few hours ago, anyway.

I Used to Be an Optimist, and Now...

The pessimist complains about the wind;

The optimist expects it to change;

And the realist adjusts the sails. -- William Arthur Ward

Or, if you're on dry land, you can take the bull by the horns! I know I'm in charge of making changes in my life, however small...and it feels great!

Vive La Difference

This afternoon I'm driving Son #2 to his hockey game. All three kids are in the car. The eldest, always out to prove he's all that intellectually, tosses out a profound thought. "If there were no oxygen, and you struck a match, it wouldn't light."

Middle son, the right brained character foil for his older brother, had a wonderful retort. "If there were no oxygen, there wouldn't be anyone TO light the match." An excellent point, we all had to admit.

Rodent Redux

My friend C has two sons, the older of whom is the age of my youngest. We try to take a day to see them when we have the week off from school (and I take a week's vacation from work). It's sometimes a challenge to find an activity that all five boys find enjoyable. Today we started with lunch out at Wendy's, which is always a hit. Two of my guys had a salad and one had chili...definitely makes the typical fast food meal healthier.

We'd gone through the movie listings last night (it was either that or bowling) and they rated the local pictures that were kid appropriate. Of the three that each kid chose, the Alvin and the Chipmunks "Squeakquel" was rated 1 by one and 2 by two...and it was a winner with C's boys. The grownups were resigned to going along for the ride. Well, guess what...without giving away too much of the plot, there were several key elements: smart dialogue, slimy villain, shy guy who eventually gets gorgeous sweet girl, school principal who tries to act tough but actually has a heart, cruel clique members who eventually get their just desserts...in general, good triumphing over evil. We had a lot of laughs, and even the two older kids enjoyed it more than they thought they might. Two thumbs up from the grownups.

Putting on a Face

The older two boys were both amused and nervous when the play's director sent home a note that listed the collection of makeup and personal care products needed by each member of the cast as dress rehearsal time gets closer. Boys and girls have some different needs, but most of the list was gender neutral. You'd expect that everyone needs a comb/brush and deodorant, but most of the list was eyebrow-raising for boys at that edge of puberty:

• black mascara
• brown eyeshadow
• brown eyeliner
• peach blush
• foundation not darker than your skin
• pressed powder, as light as possible
• neutral color lipstick
• lip liner to match lipstick
• bobby pins the same color as your hair
• hair spray

Now of course I can't buy a makeup bag for the boys, but I did find a diabetic organizer on 75% off clearance...compartments with Velcro so the makeup won't rattle around and get destroyed. Great fun shopping last night at CVS. The cashier commented that I bought two of everything, and I paused to make sure I saw her facial expression when I said it was all for my two sons. Then I 'fessed up that it was for the school musical. And noticed the relief on the cashier's face!

This morning they had questions...could they see what "pressed powder" is, because they don't want to put anything like baby powder on their faces. And they wanted a demo of the liquid foundation, but I don't wear that...so I told them to ask their grandmother. Tee hee, I'm so bad.

Fluff

Best I can tell, over a 24 hour period (Wednesday's wee hours through today's wee hours) we received about 16 inches of snow, half of it after dinner time last night. Yesterday afternoon, after we'd received maybe 4 or 5 inches already, the two younger boys went out in the backyard to build snowmen. They had a blast! I reminisced about the monster snowfalls of my Long Island youth when we not only built snowmen but snow forts and igloos which we actually carved out and used as clubhouses until the big melt. If you have snow, I hope you're enjoying it too!

Never Promised You a Rose Garden

Last night, while driving home on the Long Island Expressway, I saw a plain blue bumper sticker with white letters, on a little black sportscar. The sticker said:

Eve Was Framed

That would unravel a lot of old arguments, wouldn't it? ;-)

Super Silly Bowl

We customarily get a bunch of families together at our place on Super Bowl Sunday. Yesterday was no exception. Lots of pictures were taken, but none of 'em involved football. Why? Well, we did keep tabs on the game, but much of the activity involved the kids. Six boys, two girls...including two crawling babies...plus one dog to round out the menagerie.

Here we see one of the menfolk wrestling with three of the younger boys. Actually it was the grownup against the three boys. Each faction claimed victory.

Nerf guns are one way to turn my husband and our friend C into 40-something children. Who won that battle? I don't think they kept score, because there was too much laughing like banshees! The rest of us ducked for cover!

I Am Not an Android, Part 2

Last night I went to the ears-nose-throat doc to see what it was all about, Alfie. Ever since I recovered from the stomach virus a few weeks ago, I've had a transient ache in my ears, sinuses, and throat. A couple of days on, then a couple of days off...a bit of congestion, but nothing awful.

All the medical mavens who think they should play doctors on TV will tell you, "If you have yellowish or greenish mucus, you have an infection." Fine, but what they don't tell you is that you can have an infection if the mucus is clear. The latter is my current situation, and I ought to be as good as new after ten days of amoxicillin. Also, thanks to our doctor's miniature sinus cavity vacuum (Hoover? Electrolux? Dirt Devil? not sure!) I slept much better last night than I had in several days.

Happy Friday! It's certainly cold enough to support the snowy forecast for Lawn Guyland tonight.

Mush

Every couple of weeks, my office brings in Chinese food for lunch for anyone who fills out the order form and pays the gal who manages the money. They usually have a pile of fortune cookies left over, so I grabbed a couple this afternoon. I think they may have hired a new philosopher. I never saw anything like this before:

Life is like a dogsled team. If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes.

The other slip of paper had a modified version of my high school yearbook quote which was not found on a fortune cookie but on a sugar packet at our local diner:

It is vastly better to try to do something and fail than to try to do nothing and succeed.

Pretty good observations about leadership and accomplishment, I think.

Assume the Pose

Tonight was my first session of the rerun of the continuing education yoga class at our local high school. The instructor, Helen, has a voice and a manner inspiring to me. About half the class was new to yoga this time, which I found exciting.

We went through roughly the same "welcome" class as the first session in the fall, as far as I remember, with some starter poses (Mountain, Child's Pose, Tortoise, Warrior, Triangle, Sphinx). But I already knew how to breathe through them, and I already knew about the alignment and the muscles that are supposed to be stretched during each pose. As a result, I worked them much more deeply than I did the first time around. It was a good feeling, too. Let's see how the old spine feels tomorrow morning!

On the Edges

Yippee, my new ice skates had their maiden voyage yesterday afternoon. How strange not to rent a pair of blades at the rink. I had to loosen and tighten them a couple of times but hey that's not unexpected. The padding seems more suited to my feet than the padding inside the rentals.

Kids had a good time too, skating with my friend M's two daughters. And we saw my friend E (who also happens to be our family dentist) who was there with his daughter for a birthday party. He plays hockey on ice, so he was able to give Son #2 some pointers about how to come to a stop gracefully, side to side, spewing some cool shavings. I slept pretty well last night too!