But Owii won the war, little hooligan

Owii's daycare nemesis got kicked out this week. Today is his last day. That's pretty awesome. I understand that all kids act horrible sometimes, but I think that kid just was horrible. He's totally going to be one of those kids that hammers nails into living frogs and starts fires on cats and microwaves bugs. I never got to meet his parents but I really wanted to see them. You know, see if his crazy was nature or nurture.

When we got the news my mom asked if Owii ever talked about this kid. Well, he never really talks about anything not OF THE MOMENT, but it is true that he can talk a little bit now. So I ask him, "Hey Owii, you know Osbourne?"
"Abourn," he agrees. "Abourn HITS."
People, when that's your kid's defining characteristic, he deserves to get kicked out of daycare.

Today the teacher told me that yesterday, when Osbourne was messing with Owii, Owii said to him, "I TOE YOU, ABOURN, YEAVE ME A-YONE!" HA. That makes me laugh. Not the whole my-kid-getting-messed-with-at-daycare thing, but Owen's verbal judo. If the death glare doesn't get you (and it will), you still can't escape the scathing retorts.

Based on the statements that the director has made, and barring an unknown surge in my powers of telepathy, the teachers totally used me as a scapegoat for why they had to kick this kid out. But I'm okay with that. I should have been more vocal about my concerns about this child. I need to work on that.



A little extra story for you today:
I was putting Owen to bed while Chris ran a quick errand.
"Where Daddy? Where Daddy?" Owen asks.
"He's not here right now, buddy, Daddy go bye-bye."
He scowls at me and shouts, as he is wont to do, "NO!"
Then he says, "Daddy ONSARS!" (downstairs)
"He is?" I ask.
"Yeah. Daddy onsars," he nods to himself, "Daddy eat nak." (Daddy's downstairs eating snacks.)
He knows us so well.

SHUT UP!

I'm going to tell you guys this little story about what just happened to me and you are just not going to understand how weird it is.

It's like that one time that Amanda D. friended me on facebook, but the Amanda D. I know is now Amanda S. and I'm already facebook friends with her. How many Amanda D.'s are there in the world, and why would a random one of them try to friend me?? I think that is so crazy but nobody else seems to get that that is a really strange coincidence.

So, anyway, today's story is going to be kind of like that.

When I was on jury duty I exchanged contact information with one of my fellow jurors. We've emailed back and forth a little bit, and arranged to have lunch today. It's been, by the way, exactly four weeks since we convicted that guy. This is the first time I've been out to lunch in about two months (spending freeze you know . . . and my plan to control costs were completely thwarted by this lunch partner which is why you have to tell everyone when you are a spending freeze, because otherwise they will thwart it), and the first time I've seen my juror friend since, well, we were on the jury. While at lunch we start talking about the other jurors and how it's a little weird that there are these people that we will remember for the rest of our lives and not ever know what happened to them.

And then . . .

SHUT UP!

ANOTHER JUROR (the one who made me cupcakes for my birthday) WALKS BY.

Seriously, the chances of that have to be like one in a billion.

But you don't think it's that weird, do you?

Maybe it's because when you are listening to a story there is always something happening. I'm not, for example, talking about all the people who didn't walk by during lunch. BUT COME ON! I wasn't having lunch with a colleague!! I was having lunch with another JUROR!

Trust me, it was pretty unbelievable.

It's no use fighting it. We just ARE those parents.

Just so you know, after all that talking about homework in that post yesterday (aka, "homework day"), we forgot about homework. I remembered this morning. I wish I could more like Chris in that regard. I just forget until it's almost too late and we have to scramble. Chris could forget about homework so completely that it would be like it never existed. Seriously, my constant remembering must be annoying to Ignoring Man.

So I reminded us this morning and we start to scrambling and . . . we can't find the homework. Huh. Well.

Maybe next week.

I didn't like it then, either.

When we switched the boys to their new daycare back in March it was a huge improvement. In many, many, ways the new place was a better fit for us.

Except one way.

This daycare assigns . . .

HOMEWORK.

I remember hearing about that on the tour and the look on my face must have been akin to the expression one gets upon hearing one of those stories where people escape being trapped under a tree by cutting off a limb, because the backpedaling, it was speedy.

But they DO assign homework. Even to Owen. My 18 month old gets homework. Great. And the PACKETS that Sam brings home.

I was always opposed to this concept of homework for BABIES, but initially Chris said he "appreciated" the bonding with Sam. That lasted about two weeks. Now he employees his old superhero alter-ego, Ignoring Man. He's so good that he actually IS his own sidekick, Denial Boy.

Homework is assigned on Monday, due on Friday. And Thursday nights are not the same, people.

I think in the beginning Sam liked it, too. But the PACKETS people. THE PACKETS. They are ENDLESS. Just page after page of "circle the rhyming words," and "draw a line between things that start with the same letter" and "write the letter 'M.'" Just when he gets the hang of rhyming, all of a sudden we're matching. And as soon as he finished one page, there's another.

And you know what? There's a reason we're not teachers. It's because I get frustrated when I try to explain the concept of RHYMING. Seriously. Go ahead. You try to explain it to a 3-year-old who is looking at you like you're talking in GERMAN.

I'm not going to lie. Sometimes we just do it for them. Chris will hold the crayon in his left hand, and I'll move the paper around and together we do our best to produce convincing scribble-scrabble. As Sam calls it. I mean, I would just forget about it, but then the kids don't get their HOMEWORK STICKER. And do you know where the homework sticker goes? On the poster on the wall in the classroom. For everybody to see. That we are the kind of parents who don't care enough about school. Bad Parents. Just big ole "Bad Parent" empty spaces where stickers should be.

The worst is when we actually DO work with the kids to get the homework done, but then we forget to, you know, BRING IT TO SCHOOL. Which is totally expected from us.

I was really counting on a few more years before we had to fight with our kids about homework.

Weekend

People are all the time asking me if I had a good weekend. How the hell am I supposed to know? That happened, like, HOURS AGO.

Plus the whole good/bad dichotomy can be hard to work with. It was a GOOD weekend if I found money or got a cupcake. It was a BAD weekend if someone threw up. This weekend none of those things happened so I don't really know how to categorize it.

Chris took the boys to his parents house Saturday morning. I . . . worked around the house? I don't remember. I feel confident that I can assure you it wasn't fun, however. But it also wasn't throwing up. Oh, I changed sheets and put away clothes and stuff. Then the boys came home and they took naps. Owen is a great napper, but Sam has recently been doing this thing where he can only calm down enough to fall asleep if you lay next to his bed, ignoring him.

Chris went to work after Owen went down so I . . . sat around the house? I think I was reading the last of the Twilight series. And laying next to Sam's bed ignoring him. Which would only take five minutes, except I always fall asleep and wake up twenty minutes later, drooling and uncomfortable.

Chris was going to a football game that night so I was happy when I got invited to dinner with the family. It was Valentino's pizza and I loved it so much and it tasted so good that I ate too much of it and felt sick for HOURS AND HOURS.

Sunday we took the boys to the grocery store. We tried Giant Eagle because it is our $20 week and just not worth the gas it takes to get to the Super WalMart. And, Giant Eagle has those carts that look like cars and I thought the boys would like that. But that didn't really work out. Because Sam had somehow gotten it in his head that the "car cart" would be motorized. That kid wants a Powerwheels the way I want to win the lottery. As in, really bad, but not going to happen. Especially because I don't play the lottery. And if I don't win the lottery there is no way we can afford a powerwheels. Also, my mom thinks it is lazy-making for kids to have motorized riding toys. And I'm like, come on, I'm his mother. He's got no chance. I would have one of them motorized scooters if it weren't embarrassing. And if I didn't have to carry two giant children everywhere I go. "Oh Mommy, I want Up Up!" "Well I want to lay down on the ground right now, so we're all going to have to compromise, aren't we?" But my threat to lay on the ground is empty, and their threat to throw a fit is not, so guess who wins that one. And you just can't carry children around on a scooter, you need hands for steering. Although, now that I think about it, Sam would probably appreciate a motorized scooter as much as a Powerwheels, so maybe . . .

I digress.

Anyway, the car cart wasn't quite the panacea I had hoped for and shopping trip was short but intensely unpleasant. Then we stopped at Kim and Kristi's house so Chris could mooch some coffee and a haircut. And Owen, as per usual, screamed whenever he saw their dog, Gracie, as if Gracie were an actual Lights-Out-Hiding-Under-The-Bed Monster. If they ever need a baby for a horror movie, Owen would be awesome. As long as they bring Gracie. Then we had brunch at my parents house, but sans my actual parents, where I ate myself sick, again. But it was delicious!

After brunch we made a quick trip to the Children's Museum, the ground zero of headaches and exploding eyeballs.

Home for naps and, fortunately, long nap for myself as well. After naps Chris took Owen to dinner with his parents, and I stayed home and had a living-room picnic with Sam. Then he watched TV and I read a book (sTori Telling, by Tori Spelling. Don't ask why. Just blame Amanda). Then we gave the children their first bath together, filled with much joyous shouting of "DOP IT HAM" and "OWII TOOK MY CUP." Yes, before they took separate baths. Mostly because the vibrant and heart-felt screaming Owen used to do in response to being touched by water. It upset Sam.

Then bedtime for the boys and I read a book (Notes from the Underbelly - yech, I do not recommend) and ate leftovers from Chris's dinner with his parents. Was so yummy I went to have seconds. But soon realized that seconds was too much and I felt sick. Then, bedtime for us.

So, that was my weekend. And I couldn't really tell you if I had a "nice" weekend. Does it sound nice? And how bout yourself? Did you have a nice weekend?

And I complain about my windowless office

Sentencing was today. Of the man I convicted of murdering his mother. Even though he had no reason to. I was really torn over whether or not to go to the sentencing hearing.

Part of me was scared to sit next to this man's relatives, who clearly believe in his innocence, in case they recognized me as Juror Number One. And, you know, hated me for putting their innocent relative in jail.

But part of me really wanted to know what the judge would say, and what he would have to say. He never spoke at the trial, and in a trial concerning the motive-less killing of one's mother, hearing what the suspected killer has to say might have been interesting.

I ended up not going, mostly because fear and lazy are my default. I'm kind of glad because the article about the sentencing hearing mentioned lots of weeping. And I'm not great with that. What if I would have stood up and been like, "I take it back! Juror Number One RECANTS!" How embarrassing.

Apparently, he is still protesting his innocence, and so is his family. Still, the judge sentenced him to life without parole. I wonder why she did that? I do wish I'd been there so I could have heard her reasoning. That means that the man I convicted will never, ever, again be a free man.

Unless the appeal goes well.

He will never have another job, or apartment. I don't see how he can get married or have children, but you see crazy things on TV these days. He will never ever again in his whole life get to decide what's for dinner. He won't even get to chose to have a late lunch and then eat second dinner instead.

So here's the lesson folks: Don't own a gun. Because then a jury can never falsely convict you based on the fact that the bullets that killed your mom are a match to your gun. Because, remember, you don't have a gun.

Also, not having a gun decreases the chance that you will shoot your mother in the face.

Either way, he would have been better off with no gun.

Now I'm all bummed out.

You may notice that ads are missing from the page. It is because I decided I didn't want to sell out. I'm not going to subject you to mindless advertisements I don't even believe in!

Wait, yeah, I'm totally willing to do that.

But Google apparently sensed something fishy about the click activity, and they disabled my account. I'm no longer allowed to earn money through this blog.

Now I'm just a person. Sitting here writing. For no particular reason. Except to entertain people.

For free.