Catagorizing fights

Few things get the attention and crowd amalgamation on a playground as the chant "Fight! Fight! Fight!" The sight of two third-graders flailing at each other until someone gets kicked in the prepubescent goods is not an easy sight to forget.

In fact, there are many fights that can be quite memorable:

The nerd fight, which starts with a courageous but ineffective shove, and escalates towards a heads-turned-away slapfest...




The online gaming fight, where entitlement rears its head and loss is always never your own fault...



The scripted fight, where steroids are the norm...



Any fight with the French...


The Spartan fight, where everyone dies...



The Kung-fu fight, a superior method...




The normal child fight... "He's touching me!" "She's breathing my air!" "He farted and it stinks!" "No you stink!" "No, I don't, you do worse!"

You get the idea.


So this morning, I think I heard a new type of fight, one that I'm not sure how to label, but I guess might be "Blasphemous-scripture-Kid-Fight"...

"Ami, get your elbows off the table," Tim commanded.

"You're not the boss Tim, and Dad does not want you talking with food in your mouth," she sneered.

"I'm bigger, so I'm more boss than you are, and I'm stronger too," he shot back.

"You are being mean, so you are hearkening unto the voice of the evil one, like Satan. That makes you like Satan Tim," she countered. (For those of you keeping score, that would be one point Ami, Tim - none.)

Tim, slightly stunned, followed suit, "You do not know what those passages mean, so that does not count."

"I know I'm a princess daughter of God and you are turning aside from truth," (Well played my little blasphemer, incorporating testimony into the insult - well played. That would be a 2-0 win.)

Both spent five minutes on their beds. We decided not to include scripture reading as part of this time out, as we may need to reanalyze that approach.

The psychoanalyst bills are going to be epic.

Slacker! (s)

So we were recently introduced to internet radio. What a sweet idea. Choose what songs you want to hear. Ban those you don't. We are using slacker and pandora, and enjoy both. The a capella station on pandora is tight, and the 80's station on slacker is badical radical.






Speaking of slackers, Susanna is struggling to grasp the idea of being behind the handlebars, instead of in front.

Gifts for the Child Who Has Everything

What to get Susanna for her first birthday?

She has more clothes than we know what to do with.

She has all the types of toys children her age enjoy.

She has siblings to beat up on.

She already gets the food she likes to eat.

Savings account? Check.

What does she lack? Parents who have expensive dates!

So for Susanna's birthday, she got a babysitter. While we went to P.F. Chang's.

We know. That's horrible. But since we'll be those paying for the therapy, she can deal with it.

Oh, but least you think we are completely horrid, she is getting a Care Bear cake.

Measuring Up

Our children have not quite grasped the concept of measurement. It is fun to record some of the various confusions of time, distance, weight, and volume.

"It took me fifteen miles to finish my frosted flakes."

"I think we only have two cups left in the movie."

"We need two more minutes of muffin mix, I'll get another box."

"It will take me about an inch to finish this."

Payback

A couple of years ago, Ami would find great joy in waking up siblings who were sleeping near the edge of a bed or a couch by pushing them off the edge.

What goes around...



Susanna could not resist the temptation of grabbing her by the pants and pulling.

It's called a "kick" in the movie "Inception", and it definitely works for waking someone up, although it is not always the fall causing the rude awakening, as much as the hard floor.

Susanna is stronger than we thought.

And she laughed and laughed.

It's all in the name.

Is there any question parents get ask more than "Why?"

The only one that I think comes close is "What's for dinner?"

At the end of a long day, we decided the college stand-by noodles in a bag was all we had energy for.

"What's for dinner?"

"Secret ingredient noodle soup."

"LIKE FROM KUNG-FU PANDA!?!?!?!?!... AWESOME!... (Later) This is the best secret ingredient soup ever!"

Whoever pays the big bucks for good advertising has known something I just learned. It's all in how you package it.

Want a better Christmas Gift?

This post ignores completely what Christmas is all about and is petty and worldly.

Soooooo...

I got some really good gifts for Christmas. Shirts, a tie, some books, a cd... a lamp (yes, my wife got me a lamp. I got her 5 pairs of pants, two shirts, a skirt, a jacket, and I got a lamp and a cd from her... probably how it should be.)

Then I "accidentally" left my phone in my jeans.

Family policy is that the person who puts it into the wash checks pockets, but we will ignore that and I'll take the blame anyway.

After the final rinse cycle: Voila! No working phone. It's like magic.

(We did the whole dry it in rice thing, but Samsung intensity puts a lock on the phone to prevent warranty abuse where if a part of the phone gets wet, it locks you out. And they want to make money on us, for which they will account for in the afterlife...)

Sooooo, for after-Christmas I got a new phone! The Fascinate - hello Droid, my little friend. It tells me where to go (Lola a la "RV"), checks my email, finds restaurants, weather, texts, and movie times, tells me when the Cougs and Manchester United are winning so I can celebrate, transfers all of my 500 contacts as notes instead of phone numbers (what the !?!?), deletes emails from my gmail contacts at random (what do you mean "contact not found" I'm looking at it right here!), simplifies my life (after 13 hours of reentering all the information properly), scans my groceries and keeps a list, takes my temperature, lets me know if I have cancer, etc.

With phonezoo I can upload all the ringtones I want and assign them to my family and friends. Yea! Guess who got "Bella's theme" Thayne? Anyone wanna guess who got "Unicorns I Love them?"



We were asked to simplify our lives this year. Fortunately I got this done before the new year.

And then they double charged me and sent me a second phone in the mail. (Return to sender!)

I don't think I'll wash a phone again.

Caught...

...helping with the laundry.



What a great helper, removing wet towels from the drier.



When we're helping we're happy! And so is Mom.