Just a few choice Tims from the last few days:
**Timary**
Me: Hi Tim! How was school?
Tim: Not much to say. Anything new for me?
Me: Yes, actually! I talked to Emily today and you get to start your very own swimming lessons next week!
Tim: (eyes shining) That's incredible! I promise to behave even better than I do at school. MUCH better...well, not at all like I do at Primary!
Mom: Tim, we need to talk about how you behave at Primary.
Tim: (totally to himself) Argh! Why did I have to bring THAT up! (to me) Mom, the problem is the boredom. Then after I get bored, that activates the bad behavior.
Mom: You mean there's nothing you can do about it? It just gets activated?
(there ensues a brief discussion of free will which ends with Mom, hoping to stimulate new interest in sharing and singing time, clarifying)
So, do you think you might be able to make the choice NOT to be bored?
Tim: Mom, it's making the choice to bust up the boredom that ends up with the bad behavior.
**Timnemonics**
Tim, studying a map: How can you remember that it goes North, East, South, West?
Tom: (encouraging Tim's creativity--ha!) What do you think?
Tim: How about Never Eat Stinky Wolves?
**Tim's Megamoves**
Tim: (Whirling around the kitchen while doing random high kicks and flailing his arms passionately) Want to know what's Tim's Megamoves?
Me: Of course!
Tim: It's a combination of dance and fighting used for self defense. (more wild Megamoves)
Me: (trying hard not to laugh) I love it!
Tim: Yeah? Maybe next I'll try a combo of football and wrestling. That should be fun!
**Tim at Work**
It's a half day, usually used by the kids to invite friends over, but not this time. This time I'm making them do tons of work. Tim's assignment is in the living room. He walks aimlessly around, kicking at the stuff on the ground, groaning and literally grabbing his head in frustration. Finally, he raises his hands and yells, "Can't a kid enjoy his day off?"
Today's Nigel's birthday. He's three. That's the icky age as far as I'm concerned. Nigel's a weird combination, though. He's very obedient but it seems he still needs to assert himself. So he'll assert himself ONCE, make everybody thoroughly miserable while he does it, then ever after strictly obey whatever rule was enforced. We've never had one like that before. It's like he's the parenting simulator--all parents should get to practice discipline on him. Think how great we'd be if we'd had him first?
A couple of weeks ago he decided that he was NEVER going to drink from a cup with a lid on again. Big boy now, no lids. I've very carelessly allowed him to take his "Sponge Bob Milky Cup" downstairs while he watches Dragon Tales. He always wakes up grouchy and hates it when all "the brothers" leave for school. I just think of him like an adult with coffee and a newspaper. He needs half an hour with Zac, Weezy, Ord, Cassie, and an extra tall Milky before he can get the day going. I haven't worried about him carrying the cup downstairs because it's one of those super valves only bionic toddler sucking action can open.
All fine until two Fridays ago when he decided he was going to take the double tall down without a lid. I said no. No lid in the kitchen, okay. No lid downstairs, NO KAY! Forty five minutes of serious tantrum later, he darted over, grabbed the glass, and ran for the stairs. I had been ignoring his tantrum so I was a little slow on the hot pursuit. When he saw me gaining on him, he followed through with the instinctive action of all cornered criminals--he tried to get rid of the evidence.
All I can say in my defense is that my patience had been worn down by the lengthy tantrum. Certainly whatever was left of it vanished at the sight of milk dripping down the walls and stairs. I grabbed the glass, which still had a half an inch of milk in it and... It took him about an hour to stop sobbing broken-heartedly. I think he's forgiven, but he hasn't forgotten, because if you ask him, "Why is Mommy sorry?" he'll answer, "She pour milk on me." If you ask, "Why are you sorry?" he'll answer, "I pour milk on the floor and stairs." And if you happen to be the first one up with him in the morning, he'll ask, "Can I have Sponge Bob Puppy Milky please...WIF LID."
Friday, April 21, 2006
Sunday, April 02, 2006
Planting the Garden
This weekend was THE weekend when the garden suddenly called out and said it was ready for plants. Unfortunately, Tom wasn’t around to hear it this year. I guess that means we’re doing it my way this time. What a pity.
The garden falls into a category that makes me nervous. Like other detail work (financial management, housecleaning, laundry, proofreading), I always suspect I’m doing it wrong. Unless I have a big book (or my mom) to advise me, I just use the rule of thumb that I’d better do more of whatever I wish I didn’t have to do at all. In the case of the garden, that means I pulled all the weeds that had grown over the winter. It ought to be satisfying to look out there and see that big empty patch of brown soil, but it isn’t. That’s because we’ve never done it that way before.
Actually, I’ve never done anything at all. And Tom’s never done anything like that. The first year, he just chose the patch of lawn he wanted to turn into a garden, dug up big chunks of grass and topsoil, flipped the chunks over to make a bare space instead of a grassy space, and threw in the plants. Last year, he covered the huge weedy mess with several layers of newspaper, dumped two loads of mushroom compost on the newspaper, and shoved the plants in. I don’t mean to say he doesn’t work hard. He does. He just doesn’t do it anyone else’s way.
Plenty of people are dubious of his techniques, but the plants love him. Maybe they find a kindred spirit in his pure optimism. After all, what is a seedling but an expression of undaunted faith? Tom doesn’t fertilize, or even water all that much, and he weeds pretty sporadically, but his enthusiasm must be contagious, because we’ve had a terrific garden every year.
Our fabulous gardener neighbors are dumbfounded. There was the year they gazed incredulously on our tiny tomato plants braving the March rains. They tactfully mentioned the date when fear of frost is gone in this area—perhaps he didn’t know? Actually, Tom doesn’t fear much of anything, and that includes frost. His tomatoes had a spectacularly long growing season and produced from July to October. Then there was the year he planted watermelon, a big oops in the soggy, tepid Northwest. One of our neighbors thought that was so funny, she planted a fake from the fruit stand under the vine just to get a laugh. The last laugh was Tom’s, though, because he successfully produced not one but TWO watermelons. Everyone else uses elaborate fences and netting to protect their crops from deer; Tom fends them off with a couple of rags soaked in coyote urine (don’t ask).
So it was too bad he was gone this weekend. If he’d been here, we’d have a full-fledged garden instead of just a bare patch of earth. That garden, planted in whatever crazy way he’s chosen, is one of my favorite things about him: his cheerful optimism alive and growing outside the studio window.
The garden falls into a category that makes me nervous. Like other detail work (financial management, housecleaning, laundry, proofreading), I always suspect I’m doing it wrong. Unless I have a big book (or my mom) to advise me, I just use the rule of thumb that I’d better do more of whatever I wish I didn’t have to do at all. In the case of the garden, that means I pulled all the weeds that had grown over the winter. It ought to be satisfying to look out there and see that big empty patch of brown soil, but it isn’t. That’s because we’ve never done it that way before.
Actually, I’ve never done anything at all. And Tom’s never done anything like that. The first year, he just chose the patch of lawn he wanted to turn into a garden, dug up big chunks of grass and topsoil, flipped the chunks over to make a bare space instead of a grassy space, and threw in the plants. Last year, he covered the huge weedy mess with several layers of newspaper, dumped two loads of mushroom compost on the newspaper, and shoved the plants in. I don’t mean to say he doesn’t work hard. He does. He just doesn’t do it anyone else’s way.
Plenty of people are dubious of his techniques, but the plants love him. Maybe they find a kindred spirit in his pure optimism. After all, what is a seedling but an expression of undaunted faith? Tom doesn’t fertilize, or even water all that much, and he weeds pretty sporadically, but his enthusiasm must be contagious, because we’ve had a terrific garden every year.
Our fabulous gardener neighbors are dumbfounded. There was the year they gazed incredulously on our tiny tomato plants braving the March rains. They tactfully mentioned the date when fear of frost is gone in this area—perhaps he didn’t know? Actually, Tom doesn’t fear much of anything, and that includes frost. His tomatoes had a spectacularly long growing season and produced from July to October. Then there was the year he planted watermelon, a big oops in the soggy, tepid Northwest. One of our neighbors thought that was so funny, she planted a fake from the fruit stand under the vine just to get a laugh. The last laugh was Tom’s, though, because he successfully produced not one but TWO watermelons. Everyone else uses elaborate fences and netting to protect their crops from deer; Tom fends them off with a couple of rags soaked in coyote urine (don’t ask).
So it was too bad he was gone this weekend. If he’d been here, we’d have a full-fledged garden instead of just a bare patch of earth. That garden, planted in whatever crazy way he’s chosen, is one of my favorite things about him: his cheerful optimism alive and growing outside the studio window.
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