A Wonderful Morning with Martin Sheen

I have to admit that I've watched a lot of random stuff on Netflix over the past five weeks. None of it has made me want to run out and get a cable subscription so I can get movies or TV shows faster. In fact, often when I'm watching a movie, I have to remind myself that people view this as an art form... because what I see is so -- commercial.

But maybe that's what we've done to all fine works of art. Commercialized them. Most writers and painters that are now considered greats were relatively unknown during their lifetime. They had to die first. So we end up taking the "fineness" out of them. I guess in a way we've done that to meal time, too. For example, right now I've just enjoyed fettucini alfredo -- from a box -- that I heated up in 4 minutes in the microwave. We've taken something that should take time and effort and sped it up so that we could do other activities faster.

This morning I watched a film called "The Way." It stars a post-Jed Bartlett Martin Sheen as a father who lost his son, when he passes away while attempting to hike the El Camino de Santiago from France to Spain. When he goes to France to retrieve his son's body, he decides to take up the hike and take his son's ashes with him. I don't say this very often any more, but it was a grown-up movie. It wasn't all fake drama and special effects. There were lows and highs and a lot of beautiful scenery. There were a lot of baguettes and bottles of wine and sleeping in bunk beds.

It was a feel good movie about self-acceptance, the way life works and living a life where you get to see all of the differences in cultures in the world -- even with an American passport. :-)

I don't walk away from movies completely happy very often. Usually I'm able to guess plot lines as they develop and guess where the faux drama is going to go. I couldn't do that with this one. And it was a pleasant change of pace.

Short Cuts

I know a few days ago I blogged about X-man and his short cuts.

He had a perfect one today while reading with KTDID. He was lying on the big chair with her reading a Lego book. They were taking turns (which is our favorite way to read) where she read the page on the left and he read the page on the right.

I'm watching him absolutely NAIL words like "construction," "foundation," "truck" and "workers" and getting help on things like "smoothly" and "concrete." But then he gets to the word -- "ceiling." Instead of sounding it out. He stops, looks at it and asks, "Why couldn't they have just used the word 'roof'?"

KTDID and I both smiled. He knew what was going to happen. And he knew the word didn't begin with an "r". And he immediately wanted to substitute the word he did know for the word he didn't know. As far as reading comprehension goes, that's pretty sweet.

His teacher sent home a new spelling test sheet on Friday. I input the words into a "Build The Word" app on the iPad. He "learned" them and then did some practice. I put in some of those "advanced" bonus words that he refused to learn last week. On Saturday, he wrote five of the words. He got all the letters right but not the placement on some. He's also missing "L" sounds in words when I say them, even though I think I'm saying the word slowly and trying to enunciate each letter sound. I'm not sure between the 15 minutes we put into it on Saturday and the 20 minutes he put into it today on the app that he'll do awesome on his pre-test. But that's why it's a pre-test, right? I guess I'm still trying to figure out how he learns best, and how to incorporate lessons with fun and things he needs to improve on, so he doesn't end up spending lots of time doing things that we could "double dip" on.

Tomorrow, I'm going to use the scooter to pick the boys up from school. It'll be my first "long" scooter ride. I'm not used to just sitting around. I know I only have seven days left before I get to start standing on my foot. But it feels like a very, very long wait -- darn that light at the end of the tunnel. I can see it. I just can't get to it any faster...

X-man also started back at the Orpheum Science Museum Lego Club today. The kindergarten and first grade class meets just once a month for an hour and a half. He's loves to build cars and planes and other modes of transportation. So he took his new fighter plane to the show and tell part of the class today. He said that someone even asked him a question about his design and if he'd be upgrading it to incorporate something to shoot acid. X-man seemed pleased that he got a question and even though he thought the guns he built were enough, he would consider an acid sprayer upgrade because it sounded cool!

My mom is coming to help out this week. We're hoping it's the last week that I'm immobile. I know I won't be able to drive until at least after Nov. 7. But I might be able to walk a bit before then!

Don't Trust the X-man

Seriously, my child is TERRIBLE at keeping secrets. He doesn't do it to be mean. It's not like he's walking up to small children ruining their holiday, fairy, religious, (fill in the blank here) hopes, dreams and beliefs. He's just -- really excited about doing nice things for people.

Yesterday, we got Booed. If you don't know what this is, it's a holiday tradition in our neighborhood where someone leaves a special treat on your front porch with a poem (that is instructions) and a photo of a ghost. The recipient is supposed to post the ghost on the door and then pick two neighbors to boo and get treats for them to leave as a secret on their front porch. It's a bit like a chain letter -- with toys, crayons and candy.

After he got booed, X-man came up with the friends he wanted to boo. I told him we'd have to go around the block and see who had ghosts up on their doors so we'd know who was already chosen. But in his mind, he had two friends already picked out. When one of the friends came to the door to play this morning... he spilled the beans. :-) Then when the child called him out on sharing the secret, he backpedaled. "Maybe, maybe I'll boo you!" And then he fessed up who he wanted the second boo to go to.

It's not unlike Father's Day when we were taking MacTroll out to get his gift. It was one that Dad had to be there to pick out and get measured for... and as I'm driving away toward the store, X-man says, "We're really NOT getting you a bike, Daddy."

Great, thanks kid! No secrets for you! (On the side, his father is also pretty terrible at keeping certain secrets. Things just slide out of his mouth, and he can't take them back. They're both also not very good at lying. These, are, of course, not terrible qualities to have. :-) )

Anticipation

When I'm really excited about something I feel over the moon. I can't wait for it to happen. Something like ice cream on a crap day or a vacation to somewhere fun or to see a friend I haven't seen in a while. Sometimes, I get excited about time I get to spend by myself or about a new movie being released. These are all good things to excited about.

But then there are other things that are made worse through anticipation. That logarithm test in college algebra in high school that I knew I totally bombed. I got a 25 percent. (It was only beaten by one other student's 14 percent.) Thank goodness we had a math project and wrote a paper on a mathematician at the end of the semester so I could get uber points back that semester in my math grade. Anyway, other areas where anticipation basically gives me an ulcer: when my grandmother was slipping away at the end of her life, when I fell down four steps 20 weeks pregnant with X-man and started to have spotting, sitting in the waiting room at the old cancer center in the bowels of Carle getting an ultrasound on an unidentifiable lump in my breast...

Now that I'm 40, I'm learning that anticipation is pretty much a strong indicator that I'm still living... and that I have lived. I know to anticipate how something is going to turn out. It helps me predict that which is good and bad and -- what doesn't matter at all. It also helps me temper my responses now that I'm older.

But at six years of age, X-man still has a long way to go to learn that what is in his head is often much worse (or better) than the real thing.

For example, this morning, the family went for a flu shot. X-man has had one every year. He only had one bad experience and that was with the H1N1 Nasal drip. He hates the nasal stuff. So we skipped the flu mist clinic they had at his elementary school. I told him if he didn't do it there, he'd get the injection at Carle's flu clinic near our house. He's always happily sat through the flu injection without incident knowing there was a piece of candy when he was done. And today from 7 a.m. to noon, is the last day of the flu shot clinic at the Curtis location. (They have others around town and Public Health is always available.)

MacTroll and I got ours first. We were so fast that X-man didn't even notice that I got mine done. Then when it was his turn, he flipped out. MacTroll held him on his lap, and he turned to look at me while the needle went in. He screamed out loud and cried. Now he's obsessed as to whether or not his bandaid is falling off or not. To him getting a needle poked in his arm (before it actually happened) was the worst thing in the world (even if it was followed up with MacTroll taking him to the Fire Institute Open House).

It's hard to convey the "life gets better" message when you're on the other side of the emotional upheaval.

I committed iPhoneslaughter.

It's true.

I took a chance and went out to dinner last night with some friends. A lovely woman on my street picked me up and whirled me and my crutches to Dos Reales on Prospect. It was really nice to be around a group of grown ups and be out of my house for a couple hours.

But it was longer than I had sat in a long time, so by the end of the night. I was happy, but tired and my bum foot was very, very swollen. I got home and sat on my couch for a while listening to my dad finish reading a chapter to X-man. Then he came down and we chatted a while. He called my stepmom and then I went to the stairs to hobble up them. I was really tired. I almost lost my balance three times. My good leg was wiped out.

I was thankful when I got to the top safe. And then I went to my room to put on my pajamas. I took off my boot and suddenly I had to pee.

I can't carry anything in my hands with crutches, so I used the back pocket of my stretchy workout pants. And when I was balancing on one foot and trying to lower my pants... it fell out and into the toilet water.

I snatched it out. dried it off and tried to turn it off, but the touch screen wouldn't work. Sigh. I put it on the back of the toilet, did my business. Then put it back in my pocket and crutched it into the bedroom. When my dad was off the phone, he brought me the container of rice to lay it on.

The good news is that MacTroll's old iPhone 4 downstairs that I can use. The bad news is -- I feel like an idiot.

Tired and imbalanced Looseys do not do well in the common sense department, I guess. On the plus side, I don't have to deal with Siri any more.

House Plants Just Don't Cut It

If you've ever visited my house, you'll notice that the only thing "green" on the inside is that which I intend to cook. I have no house plants. I am a terrible inside-the-house gardener.

I forget to water. Or I just forget entirely. My cats chew on leaves, which can be hazardous to their health and to my sense of well being (and bank account).

I have four pets, a child and a spouse, they get fed and cleaned and taken care of... so what's so hard about a plant?

Mostly, everyone in my family speaks up. I need a plant to do the same. My pets meow, pace, body slam me, roll on me, knead their claws, whine, paw at me, and let me know when they need to eat, play, go to the vet or go outside (dog only here... all outside begging by the cats is ignored). House plants don't. It's hard not to notice when Clawdio pees in the shower letting us know he's either mad at you, how their litter box looks or that they need to go to the vet.

Although to be fair, once upon a time MacTroll kept a pot of mint (yes, the weed, that he said tasted good in a mojito) alive for two months. I wondered how he did it because I never saw him water it. Then one day, I bent over to smell the plant. It smelled mildly of mint. But mostly it smelled like cat pee. I'll let you decide if he washed the leaves before he put it in his drink.

Lily, our dog, is young (18 months). This makes her playful, curious and impatient. (Not unlike our son.) When she was 14 months old, she learned to open the backdoor by pushing down on the handle and pushing out. Crap.

Within a few weeks, she had learned to open the backdoor from outside by pushing down the handle and pulling the bar in. Double crap.

Being that cats are not dumb. They watched our smart dog. I shut the bedroom door for a moment to get some privacy while I dressed this morning. The door opened. I expected to see Lily. But no. It was Luke. Why should he let Lily have all the door opening fun?

It takes a lot to remember to lock the backdoor so that Lily doesn't open it herself and let herself out (or in!). She's a bit like X-man when he was five and he forgot to shut the backdoor when he went out to play all the time. If we could train her to open it and close it so that no cats get out, it might not be a bad situation.

All I know is, we obviously have an influence of independence and self-sufficiency around here that transcends from human to canine to feline.

And in our next house, I swear we're going to have doorknobs, so that only species with thumbs can open the doors.

Good Questions

X-man has a science fair coming up at school. Tonight, I sat down with him and Papa at dinner and we talked about science questions he had that he didn't know the answer to. (The idea being to learn something new and not just repeat what he already knows.)

And (drum roll) the final three project questions are:

1. How does lava get into a volcano?

2. How does a queen ant become a queen ant?

3. Which comes first the seed or the plant?

At the last one, my Dad looked at me and smirked. How profound for a first grader. My Dad's answer -- 42 (Thanks to Douglas Adams).

I called MacTroll, who plans on working on the project with X-man. He votes for Lava. :-) He's all excited about making some kind of earth diorama. He already knows how lava gets OUT of the volcano (good old baking soda and vinegar). But we'll have to see what kind of experiment they do about how lava gets into the volcano.

Meanwhile, my son came home from Mathman today all excited. Don has started to introduce him to multiplication and fractions. X-man was ever so proud of the work he did there today. And I love that he loves going and finds math so much fun.

We've been working on spelling words this week. X-man loves to read, but he's a visual kid, so even though he knows the sounds, he sometimes has to write down the letter that corresponds with them because if he says /bah/ meaning b, he doesn't say b. But he'll write it. So we've been practicing spelling words by writing them on lined paper. He is 100 percent better at writing on lined paper than paper without lines. Legibility increases by 80 percent. So, I'll have to talk about that with his teachers at parent/teacher conference, because I had a hard time making out his writing on the test on a white sheet of paper. But when he wrote the words on lined paper I could read them all for sure.

He missed two words on his pre-test on monday (littel and ceb for little and cob). I've also been having him practice his handwriting because he is still behind in his fine motor skills. I asked him if he wanted to work on the challenge words, but he said he wasn't allowed to. I told him he could learn to spell any words he wanted to, but apparently, that was too much work. :-)

It's like on the math homework today. One of the questions was to list an even number under 50 and then make tally marks next to it. X-man picked the number 2. Answers the question with the least amount of effort having to be put into it. And this, in a nutshell, is my kid. It is also, in a nutshell, my husband. Go figure.