It's winter now: no snow sticking yet, but it's getting down to the single digits at night. It's customary to leave a faucet running all winter in every house in town so that the water mains don't freeze. This has the possibility of being, well,
messy, you know, with the boys.
Hummer is walking, climbing, and talking. Today he dumped the bowl of soaking anasazi beans off the table onto himself, the table, and the floor. He cried. I laughed. My boys are tough because my reaction when they get themselves into trouble is so frequently more along the lines of "What did you expect?" than "Oh, you poor thing!"
Case in point: In the grocery store today, Beau decided, against my advice, to slide into the bottom rack of the shopping cart. He hit his head against the cart. He got no sympathy from me. He got more from strangers. All I said was: "Well, I told you that you shouldn't do that. Now you know why." And then, a few minutes later: "That is
enough whining, young man. You will
stop right now." Which he did. The boy loves math. It's beyond me. He's finally learned that when people ask what grade he's in the appropriate answer is "I'm homeschooled." Technically, he'd start kindergarten
next fall.
Hemi is so busy these days, mostly trying to do what his big brother is doing, with smaller, less coordinated hands but a double dose of stuborness.
Schoolwork procedes in fits and starts. When we're traveling, like last week, it's hard to keep it up. Especially visiting my parents. On the other hand, Nana wants to read, read, read with the boys, all the time, until they're stir-crazy. Or better yet, have them read to her. (For Hemi, he has to have memorized the book to sucessfully 'read', but Beau can make out many of them now.)
I read on a website somewhere a lady moaning about her husband's collection of old computers. The response was that at least some of them were still useful. Yeah, and my husband got called to fix an MS-DOS the other day. And he did! (Well, actually found a DOS emulator that runs on
98. The customer runs a DOS program for his business.) Now my husband has one of Dad's old Apple IIe's for a client who needs to get data off of old 5.25" floppies. Geeks don't get rid of computers. If you married one, be glad: it could be worse. My mom married a paleontologist. Dad keeps road kill in their freezer. You could be pulling out a bald eagle or a kit fox while trying to find the turkey.
Thanksgiving fatalities: One chandalier, 3 very expensive and no longer made crystal goblets, 2 less expensive and still made crystal glasses, all the side dishes and trimmings (fortunately all were in unbreakable inheirated silver seving peices, in memory of Grandmother and Great-Grandmother). The china and the guests all survived, and no one was injured, only Hummer was scared. The chandalier came unscrewed from its chain and fell, narrowly missing the centerpeice mirror in the middle of the table.
Next two weeks: CCNA. And the job pays for it all. How cool is that?
