fun in threes, sometimes fours
around the house
We polished the nails/axels, cut and weighted the car so that the center of gravity is in the optimal location, rough-sanded, and talked about goals for the derby next week.
"I'd like to get at least third place," the Boy said.
It's a good goal: realistic, modest. We'll see.
Part of it was laziness, but we’ll chalk it up to Polishness: we finally took down our Christmas tree today. We’d been meaning to do it for a couple of weeks, but we didn’t adequately work it into our schedule.
Or we can use K’s Polishness as an excuse: Poles always put their Christmas trees up later (sometimes, only a couple of days before Christmas) and take them down later.
The Boy and I chopped it up in the afternoon. “This is so satisfying,” he said. For us all, in different ways…
Today’s task with the Boy — make some serious improvements in his room. Specifically, in its cleanliness. This meant, in part, going through toys and throwing out things that were broken, packing away to Goodwill things he no longer played with, and generally taking stock of the toys he has and what he needs.
We took out three garbage bags of stuff from his room, including probably 40 cars. We dumped all his cars out into a pile and ran the wheel test: if all four wheels roll, it’s a keeper; if not, toss it.
He was at times somewhat reluctant to give up this or that car. But we tried to be brutal. Heartless. “It’s broken, buddy,” I said I don’t know how many times. “You can’t play with it. You can’t do anything with it…”
“Yeah, but…”
Next, we cleaned out under his bed. Once we got everything taken care of, he decided he wanted to be the monster under the bed. That’s an improvement.
And toward the middle of the afternoon, L made her way into E’s room to clean the windows. K has hired her to do a lot of the Christmas cleaning because she’s saving up for a phone. That’s right. We’ve finally given in. The Girl, at age fourteen, is getting her first phone.
And, in truth, she does need one at times. She called me from volleyball practice once because they’d ended early. “Let’s go ahead and delete that number from the history…” I suggested, handing her the phone when we got in the car.
It’s that time of year — spring Christmas cleaning.
I’ve written before about K and the level of Christmas cleaning she requires:
The window is not dirty; it’s fogged from the gas in between the two panes doing something funky.
That required level of cleanliness now drives the Girl mad. “Why are madre’s standards so high?” (She’s been calling us madre and padre for about a year now. Why? Because.)
“Because they are.” We try to reassure her that it’s good practice for “real life.” “You might get a boss with impossibly high standards. You’ll be used to it.”
I don’t know if she buys it.
"Padre! Padre! Come here!" The Girl had discovered a new dilemma -- I could hear it in her voice. (She's taken to calling K and me "Madre" and "Padre" of late -- I think it's kind of cute.)
"What?"
"There's a snapping turtle in our backyard, trapped by the fence, and Clover is going crazy with it."
I put on some heavy gloves and went out for a turtle rescue, only to discover
that L doesn't know what a snapping turtle looks like compared to a regular box turtle.
"Does that mean we can take it up and show everyone?"
"Of course."
The day began with a challenge: the Swamp Rabbit Trail. Our goal was to ride the whole distance (well, the main part of the trail) and back again -- a total of 22 miles. For K and me, it was probably not that big a deal -- we've ridden further, and faster. For the Girl, it was no big deal: she's been cycling a lot lately, plus she's just young and strong. But for the Boy? His longest ride to date was 16 miles, just over a year ago.
Other than being younger and not as strong, he has another disadvantage: a smaller bike that cannot possibly go nearly as fast. Yet he soldiered through.
In the afternoon, he and I finished our summer project. French drain completed and completely hidden.
