Let me be clear…

Posted on December 22, 2011 by Suzanne

The boys each have a laptop, an iPod, a Nintendo DS, and our family has a Wii and a PS3. They are so far away from deprived, they wouldn’t know deprivation if it came up and punched them in the nose.

They are not UNgrateful, but we could all work on being more thankful for what we have, and understanding how lucky we really are. Mark and I have talked about finding volunteer opportunities for the whole family, but sadly, that has been more talk than actual action. The boys have had a few opportunities lately to be useful to other people, and it’s been good for them. We’ll keep working on that.

If you really want to feel sorry for someone, pity this guy:

He crawled under the covers and started attacking my legs and feet. I pulled him out and wouldn’t let him back in. Talk about a meanie.

Mean parents

Posted on December 18, 2011 by Suzanne

Will and Joe are the most underprivileged 12 year olds on the planets: they do not have cell phones.

“ALL” of their classmates have them. It’s really sad, you should pity them.

Except! We had decided that this Christmas we’d finally cave and stop being so darned mean to our poor, deprived children.

Our wireless plan is a data plan, so any new phones would be $40 per month extra, each. $80 a month?? We are getting a 20% discount off that, but even still: we had no intention of spending an extra $64 per month for the boys to have phones.

But we had this great idea! We’d add them to my Mom’s account! As far as we could figure from the limited information available (have you ever tried to actually get good information from a wireless company’s website? good luck with that…), it seemed that it would only be $10 per month per basic phone.

Um, no. As it turns out, her plan is so old that we couldn’t just add, she’d have to upgrade to a new plan. I bet you can guess the difference between her new plan and the old one.

$80 per month.

And that was just for plain phones with texting. On our plan, they could have smartphones.

But apparently we are still major grinches, because even I cannot justify spending $720 a year for the boys to have phones that they will have a legitimate need for…maybe…once a month?

Sadly, until they start driving, Will and Joe will have to continue borrowing their friends’ phones to call home, and will have to suffer without access to text messaging at all hours of the day and night.

Somehow, I think they’ll manage.

Basketball season has arrived

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Suzanne

Tonight was the first Junior High Boys Basketball game. Well, gameS — a 7th grade game and then an 8th grade game.

Everybody’s always asking me which is which, so I try to come up with some association with their name and number so I don’t have to keep answering. We have talked to Will before about getting 11: 11 equals double L’s, and I was pretty pleased when he came home the other day having chosen that. We’ve tried to get Joe to get something with a Zero in it, but at least his is not at all similar (he’s 31, and has the ball in the picture). It was hard the year they were 52 and 54 in football: those numbers are just too close together and didn’t have any good mnemonic that I could teach people.

The 7th graders did pretty well for their very first junior high game. It was a loss, 31-18, but they played hard and were trying. Mark said the team actually took about 40 shots, so they were taking the opportunities, but now they need to work on actually MAKING all of the baskets…

Mark is helping coach this year, and I hope he is having fun. He and the boys have to be at school at 6:20 AM for practice every morning. Better them than me. I am NOT a morning person. Unfortunately, I’ve been too much of a night owl lately, and even my 7AM wakeup call has been giving me trouble. I need to figure out how to get the stuff done I want done, AND exercise AND get to bed at a decent hour. And no, I’m not even talking about trying to get the house cleaned and the laundry done…

For Christmas, I would like a few extra hours per day. What do you guys think? Any chance Santa will help me out?

The Cat in the Tree

Posted on November 28, 2011 by Suzanne

While I was eating my breakfast, I thought Miles was just batting at one of the low-hanging ornaments. I went over to move some things that were dangling off the bottom branches, only to discover that the tree’s movement was actually the cat climbing into the tree.

I pulled him out, but of course he climbed right back up. I left him there, partly because I had to go and partly because I realized that it didn’t really matter what I did, he was going to do whatever he darn well pleased.

By the time I got to school, I had started to worry that he was going to topple the tree over. I said this to someone and they thought I meant that I was worried that he was going to get hurt. Ha. I was fearful for my fragile ornaments!

I resolved to go home at lunch to pull said ornaments off, and told my boss, who promptly said “Maybe you should just go now, you’d feel really awful if something happened before you got there.”

I felt a little foolish running home right away just to check on it, but he was right. I would have sat all morning wondering if everyone and everything was safe.

Luckily for the cat’s continued existence, the tree was (and is…) still standing. Hopefully in a few days, the novelty will wear off. He is endlessly entertaining, at least.

Post-football practice, pre-supper conversation

Posted on August 29, 2011 by Suzanne

Mom: What are you interested in for supper tonight?
Joe: Food. Lots of it.

School started a week ago – everyone seems to be getting along OK, so far. The biggest change so far is after school football practice: the boys don’t generally get home until 6:30/6:45 these days.