Busy Days Update

     "You people in Western New York are never happy unless the temperature is 75 degrees. No higher, no lower!" A patient that normally resides in Florida informed me last week.
     I don't think he is too far off the mark, either.


     That being said, it's been hotter than we are used to around here lately. Our lawns are burned brown, our flowers are wilted, the fields and farmers are all in despair. Water levels are low, creeks are dried up, and everyone pretty much talks constantly about how worrisome this has become. A week of constant steady rain would not be unwelcome.


     Due to the temps, I have taken the kids to the local town pool as often as I have been able lately. Saturday afternoon, after a morning of inflicting the child abuse/slave labor of blueberry picking onto my children, I took the boys swimming. The girls had other things to do. We no sooner arrived at the pool, when George began to beg.


     "Mama? Can I swim in the deep end?"


     "No. I don't think so. I just don't know if you're ready..."


     "I do it at the school pool, when Kaila takes us, and I can swim to the bottom of the deep end there!"


     "I know. But, I just worry you are going to push too hard and then drown because you have zero fear."


     "Mama. Watch." And with that, he hoisted himself out of the shallow end, marched over to the deep end and jumped right in while I tried not to shriek. The lifeguards merely looked bored. George then proceeded to swim across the pool back and forth, and then swim down to the bottom.


     "Okay. Fine. You can swim in the deep end."


     On Sunday, I took the entire family to the pool, after a morning of more child abuse/slave labor of house work and grocery shopping. George jumped into the deep end, but, after about two minutes was not happy with just swimming in the deep end. Joe has been working on perfecting a deep dive and a shallow dive, to earn Scout badges. Lexi, who is half mermaid, loves to dive for the sheer joy of it. My niece and nephew were there, both diving as well.
     After a few cannon balls and running jumps into the pool, George began to watch the older kids carefully. Lexi gave him a few tips, and, within five minutes, George was diving just as well as the rest of them. There was absolutely no practice, no hesitation, no teaching - he just dove right in.


     This is not unlike when he learned to ride a bike when he was 3, and was jumping ramps by the end of the first day on two wheels.


     After I took the boys swimming on Saturday, everyone pretty much had things to do, except Joe and I. So, I decided to take Joe to a local county fair that I had never gone to before. We arrived to the fair in no time, and paid to get in.


     "Joe! The demolition derby is tonight! Do you want to go take a look?"


     "No. That is very dangerous."


     "Well, I suppose it is a little dangerous for the drivers, but, we can just look for a few minutes?"


     "No. It makes me very uncomfortable."


     "Well, let's see what else is here. Do you want to ride the rides?"

     "No, I don't think so."


     "There's bumper cars..."


     "Okay. We can do bumper cars." he agreed. So, he did the bumper cars. And the slide. And that's about it.


     "No rides, Joe?"


     "Mom. I am a boy going thru puberty. My body is confused enough, without throwing it up into the air and spinning it around at high speeds. I am not going on any rides."


     "Okay. You make an interesting observation. Better safe than sorry."


     Joe wasn't interested in the out buildings, or the animals, or the displays. The more we walked, the closer we came to the demolition derby.


     "Mom! What are they using? Monster Trucks? What kind of vehicles do they do these things with?"


     "Just regular old cars that are pretty much junk, but somebody was able to make them run enough to do this. The participants know they are all headed to the junk yard after getting all beat up at this derby."


     "Why are they so loud?"


     "I don't think mufflers are a priority. Or even used. Come on, let's go over and just take a peak!"


     "This is not safe. I am not comfortable with this."


     "Joe! It's fine, come look."


     "Mom! Look at this! These walls are not very thick! Or high! At any point, a car could come through the walls. Or over the walls. Anybody could die or get hurt. And what is the point of going really fast in a car to deliberately smash into other people? Did you know if you do that on the outside, people go to jail, or the get hurt and go to the  hospital, or go to court??? Why would anybody think this is a good idea?! Just LOOK at these walls! Mom. Look. The stands are really close to the track. What if parts go flying into the crowd? This is not responsible. This is unsafe."


     Wouldn't you know it. At that very moment, the entire thing was paused, because they had to get Emergency Personnel involved because of some emergency. I couldn't tell if the emergency was in the stands, or on the track, because Joe had just seen his entire argument confirmed, and refused to watch any longer. This is what happens when you take a very literal and very smart and very serious and very articulate boy to the fair.
     Joe did have a good time though. Because Joe LOVES Fair food. He ate pretty much everything.


      Honestly, I love looking at the world through his perspective, and I love conversations with him. It can be serious theories about space or weather, or, it can be a full blown argument over super heroes. It's never dull. We have surpassed myself googling things for him, to, just handing him my phone to look things up. (The iPad has been hidden away indefinitely. The kids would sit with it all day and half the night if they could. I have seen way more outside play, with the disappearance of electronics.)




     Kaila has had an ongoing argument with the cable company. Our wifi never seems to work well. Since Kaila is the biggest wifi consumer in the household, with her phone, she tends to notice it the most. Kaila has never shown the slightest hesitation to whip out her phone and call to complain about things when she is not happy, and the cable company is no exception. She is literally on a first name basis with someone from the cable company named Julie, who has an Indian accent. Anyhow, Apparently the wifi was not working again yesterday, after Kaila had just spent babysitting money renting movies off the Roku. This was completely the last straw for Kaila, who then dialed up the cable company again and informed them that this was unacceptable service, and something needed to be done once and for all, because it is absolutely ridiculous that a teenage girl who is on her phone all the time should have the cable company listed as her number five most called number. At which she was coldly and rudely informed that the cable company does their best. To which she snapped back "Sweety. Obviously your best is not good enough." at which the poor guy on the other end (Julie was not in, evidently.) scheduled a technician to come to the house today. And that an 18 year old adult would need to be present. Kaila haughtily agreed to this. She then hung up  from the cable company and got in touch with the next door neighbor and asked her to please be the adult on the premises when the cable company arrived.
     After setting everything up to her satisfaction, she informed me of all this via text. While I was at work. In Buffalo. Surrounded by colleagues. I am very proud of my calm face as I text back "WHAT???!!!!!!"  Honestly, she has better luck with the cable company than I ever have. Anyhow, the cable company came and went today, to Kaila's satisfaction. The text I received was "He just finished up. I picked a new name for the new box. You're welcome." "O.M.G., what is it???" "Bill Wi the Science Fi"


     And that's about it lately. Mostly our days lately consist of work/cleaning/cooking/laundry. Thank goodness for my cleaning sidekick, Lexi, who will happily put on loud music that can range from today's music (Of which she knows every word of every song) to 50's rock and roll, (as, I am pretty sure she was supposed to be born in the 50's and somebody forgot to send her to whomever she was supposed to be born to, so I got to keep her.) Lexi is the only one of my kids who inherited my clean freak streak, and is happy to help on "clean the house" days, as well as shame her siblings for their slovenly laziness.


     Stay cool and think rainy thoughts!