The making of a politician

Eli recently found our old Othello game. He and Jon dug up the rules online because we couldn't remember how to play. For the first game, Jon took on Eli. Jon lost. By a lot. The next night Eli offered to play me. I have memories from my youth about being really good at this game, so right away I decided that maybe I should go easy on him so that he did not get discouraged. By about turn four, I barely had any white guys left on the board. So I decided it was time to play for real and buckled down to the task of whooping my 8 year old son. It didn't happen. He beat me handily. Afterward, as he was savoring victory and I was searching for any excuse for my humbling defeat I said, "But Eli, you have to admit that I pointed out a few good moves to you." "I don't remember you saying anything, Mom." Really? Then, "Well, atleast admit that quite a few times I reminded you to flip the pieces on the diagonal." (I did do that, I promise). "I have no such recollections, Mom." With a straight face! No such recollections! He briskly folded up the game, tucked it under his arm, and flashed me a wicked grin as he bounced up the stairs to try to victimize his poor father.

NOTE: Eli just read this entry and said that, actually, when I tried to make claims that I had helped him, he had said, "I deny everything." Now he just came into the room, saw me working on this and said, "Truth Patrol!!". I don't know if we should be relying on Mr. I Deny Everything to be the truth patrol, but maybe that's just me.

To be a cool dude

When Theo feels a little under the weather he loses all ability to play by himself. Usually he will go off with the legos and only come up for air when he has to eat or go to the bathroom. But Sunday he was suffering from a headache and followed Jon and I around the house begging for us to play legos with him. Jon did a great job of complying while Eli and I were out for a ski. When we got home, it was clearly my turn. I suffer when we are just free-lancing with the legos. I love putting together a new set with directions, but when faced with 7,653 legos and no plan, I get stymied. So I sat down in the office with Theo with a bit of a bad attitude. But then he started chatting about school, and it turned into one of the sweeter hours I've spent with him lately. His kindergarten class has reading buddies from a 5/6 grade class. Theo started telling me that his buddy wasn't "really.....a ..chick...No, he's not a dude. He doesn't have like cool dude hair or anything. Cole's buddy, now he has some cool dude hair! But my buddy is a good reader, and really that is what matters most. Right??" It was fascinating to watch Theo try to put into words his impression of his buddy, and to note that he is already perceiving this difference between 'dudes' and 'not-dudes'. Today, while I was at Expo, I was telling his teacher about this little convo. She took me over to look at the pictures of Theo and all his classmates with their reading buddies. And by looking at the pictures, I think I agree with Theo. And then Mary looked at Theo's buddy, and she said, "Yep, his teacher says that he picks his nose a lot..." So, it looks like it's time that I start paying more attention to my own hair styling techniques. I can't have Theo labeling me a 'not-dude' or a 'not-chick' as the case may be. And for the record, I did, after one hour of hard labor, make a pretty cool lego screen porch for one of the 27 buildings Jon had constructed earlier in the day.

You so embarrassed me

Last Friday I was walking home from Expo with Theo, Eli, and cousin Espen. We walked past a neighbor who was waiting at a bus stop for her children to come home from school. She asked if we were having a fun Friday playdate with a friend. I said that we wished we could, but we were just delivering Espen to his parents. Then I mentioned that he was a cousin. Eli had walked ahead quickly and when I caught up to him he said, "You just SO embarrassed me Mom!" I had no clue, none, of what the offense might have been. This was the first time he had ever told me that I had done this to him and I was furiously backtracking through my memory of the event to find the offensive moment. He then did a little imitation of my introduction of Espen as a cousin. In HIS mind I had been quite theatrical and had spread my arms and enunciated cousin in several (completely embarrassing) ways. For the record, this is not my memory of my behavior! He quickly was laughing and over the issue, but I see where this is going. The days when we are warmly received in his classroom as volunteers may be nearing an end. In fact, yesterday, Jon secretly signed up to be a classroom reader in Eli's class. Jon was sitting in the reading chair when the class came back from science and initially Eli's eyes bugged out and he looked delighted. Then Jon read the story and answered questions. After several kids had their chance to ask something, Eli put his hand up and Jon called on him. Eli's question? "Um, do you think I could go to the bathroom? This is getting kind of long and we need to get to snack soon..." So that ended that! Really, he remains as sweet and as endearing as ever, but I think the veneer he has put on us is starting to crack just a little. Shoot.

A little hut in the woods....

For about the past year, Theo has periodically declared that when he grows up he is going to live in a little hut in the woods. There will be no girls there. Just the dragons he trains. He has put some serious thought into how this is all going to work out. Anyway- yesterday we had the boys out to Battle Creek Park to ski. It was an absolutely gorgeous day- pretty warm, the trees decorated with frosty snow, and two lovely sets of ski tracks leading off into the woods. Eli and I set off and I immediately realized that I was dressed too warmly, so I left him on his own as I dashed back to the car to change coats. On the way I passed Jon and Theo crawling down the path at Theo's none-too-blistering pace. I told Jon that Eli was off ahead, heading out on his own and I would catch up to him. Apparently Jon decided to catch up to Eli, figuring I would come across Theo quickly because he is so not-fast. I did. He was skiing down the path, entirely alone, with a blissful smile on his face. When I caught up to him he said, "Mom, this is what it's going to be like!!! This is what it will be like when I live alone in my hut in the woods. Just me. And all the animals I've trained, of course, so I won't be alone. And I'll get them all little booties so they can run through the snowy woods with me!!" He was in heaven. I felt very un-needed, but I couldn't help gettting caught up in Theo's excitement and his love of being in the woods. I'm starting to think that he really is going to go through with this hut plan of his. Maybe much sooner than I orginally thought. The only problem I can foresee, is that he will have to learn how to pick up his skiing pace, or his hut is going to have to be real close to all the commodities he needs. The kid has a wonderful time out on his skies, and has no worries that he only goes about .5 mile per hour.

Cool Down

I'm up here typing, hoping it will help me cool down from the ferocious air hockey tournament I just participated in. Gripping on to that little puck-pusher thing can make your fingers seize right up. Yep, we got the boys a gigantic air hockey table and it has taken over our basement. To my complete surprise, I have discovered that Eli has really mastered the refined art of trash-talking. I don't know where he could have picked that up.
Overall, our compact-ed christmas was a success. I think we'll try it again next year.

Theo's love declarations

The kid declares his love for me and his dad about every 10 minutes these days. I don't know what's going on, but when I pointed out that he sure was chock full of love and declaring it often, he said, "Oh Mom, I can't help it, it just bubbles out..."
And later, "Sometimes Mom, I just love you so much my eyes get all teary." Right now as I am typing this, Theo just jumped on my lap and told me how much he loved me. Then he segued right into a description of a battle scene between enemy forces that is forever playing in his head.

Christmas on the compact

As we've been approaching Christmas, I've been a little nervous about 'keeping the compact'. We have worked hard to simplify the holiday, so we never go hog wild. But I do want that the present under the tree from us is one that has a little bit of a wow factor. I had this nagging feeling that we might have to bend the rules a bit. But then Mary Beth, the compact instigator, arranged a meeting of compactees late one evening at a local coffee shop. We swapped ideas and I left more confident that we were going to be able to pull this off. And I think we have. Of course the jury is still out, and we will find out for sure on Tuesday morning, but I'm feeling good. I did lose about one whole day of my life to craigslist, scanning the metro area listings for kid stuff. In the end, both the purchases I made were within one mile of my house and I was able to walk to make my deals. I liked that. The kids have gotten into the game and we've put together some great gifts for their cousins from local re-use gems like ArtStart and Practical Goods. I think we ended up getting all of our gifts (with one notable exception from Woodbury- which will be revealed on Tuesday) from within 2 miles of our house, and everything was from either a regular old citizen, or a locally owned store. It feels good. We just realized today that we only have four more months 'on the compact'. Over all, I think it's doing it's job. We definitely buy less in general and I haven't been to Target for 8 months, so right there it is all worthwhile.