Reasons Like Seasons

I got home from my lovely vacation Friday afternoon and slept in my own bed that night for the first time in almost a week, only to be woken up on Saturday morning by the fact that July is almost over and I have accomplished less than one percent of the tasks I had planned for the summer. (Insert expletive of your choice here.) What on earth have I been doing for the last two months?  (Spending time with my children, packing, and cleaning my apartment are not legitimate answers.) Time to get with the program. My frantic attempt to accomplish tasks is pretty much my husband's worst nightmare. While I endeavor to clean, vacuum, reorganize, wash, and de-own, he longs for two uninterrupted days of sleep and playing Xbox. I feel you, my lovely spouse, but this weekend, things will probably go better for everyone if you stay the (reuse expletive from above) out of my way. I started with beans: almost six cups of Sprout's dehydrated pinto beans. On Friday, I made the mistake ...

Kallax Shelving Unit "This is the worst day of my life!" screams Boy 1 as he teeters precariously near my open laptop on the top of a questionably stable Ikea Kallax shelving unit. "Why, baby? What's wrong? How can I help?" "I want to order Kai. Order this one for me right now! "How much does it cost?" "I don't know." "What does the number on the screen say?" "17." "How much money do you have?" Tears streaming from his face, he shoves a pile of crumpled bills in my direction. "You count them," he replies. Slowly, I flatten the bills with the edge of my hand, one-by-one, until I have four green rectangles lined up flat on the carpet. "Five plus one is six, six plus one is seven; seven plus one is eight. Eight. You have eight dollars." "Whaaaaaaaaa!" he screams with the power of a hurricane. "Order it for me NOW!" Ninjago Lego Set 7...

Boy 1: Brother, No! You are Not allowed to play with that! Give me back my head! Boy 2: No, I will never Give back your tiny Lego: Consider it mine. Boy 1: I dare you to eat The very piece you just stole. Mom will love that plan. Boy 2 You cannot trick me That easily, my brother. Small but smart am I.

I want Boy 1 to read so badly that it hurts. He knows a few words, but I feel that I have no justification to believe he is a mini-genius until he can read me a story. He already narrates adorable fictional prose, but due to some unknown reason, I don't feel like it counts until he writes the stories himself. As part of this epic journey, I have decided to allow him a Lego prize for every perfect square of words he learns. So far, he has 9, which is 3 squared in case it has been more than ten years since you took 6th grade math, and we ordered some Ninjago Legos from Amazon to celebrate. Now, every time I pick up my phone, he asks if he can look up the delivery status of his Legos. On the one hand I should be pleased that he knows so much vocabulary surrounding orders on Amazon. But, on the other hand, I should be worried that he knows so much of the vocabulary involved in ordering items from Amazon. It seems like with parenting, there is absolutely no winning, or at least, ...