Turkey Buzzard

I am going to do some backtracking blog posts here. My son, what a boy. He comes up with the funniest things sometimes. I love that he has such an appetite for reading, and it shows by some of the comments he makes.

He would probably say his all-time favorite book series is "Harry Potter" but I actually think it is, "Hank the Cowdog".  He has read and listened to so many of these books that we've begun to decipher when his comments are his own or straight from Hank.

Camping the Northwest - Boy Scouts of America

Last school year (6th grade) was rather difficult. Transitioning from elementary school to middle school is pretty rough. In fact, many times my boy would come home announcing his plans to start a petition amongst his classmates about the need for recess. He would even cite sources saying how kids need to move and be active. One difficult day, his statement was simply, "I think I can make it through one more day, at least."

Thankfully, by the last day of school, he was "riding high" again, happy to embark on a summer of adventures and fun. He and some friends even determined they were going to ride their bikes to
school on the last day. School starts at 7:45. While middle school is all uphill from my house (about 5 miles), I think the boys padded in quite a bit of extra travel time when they set their meet-up time for 6:00 a.m. I honestly didn't think anyone would show up, so I pedaled up to the elementary school (meeting place) and sure enough, one boy was up there (plan was that four boys were going to meet and ride together). The two boys (my son and one friend) waited for 15 minutes, realized the other guys had slept in (or not been given permission to go at all), and took off for school. They arrived a full 45 minutes before school start-time and according to my son's description, just played around till school started. That is a long time to loiter and an early time to do it, but I was proud of his stick-to-it attitude.

Bear Lake

During the summer, we spent some time in Idaho, as usual. He really knows how to charm the ladies :-) and definitely worked his magic when he said after a particularly good meal courtesy of Aunt Tawna, "I consider myself a food expert and this is really good."

We had a great time river rafting in Twin Falls with Melissa and her family. It was just perfect, the day was mildly hot, our river guide was engaging and fun. The significance of the experience was that my firstborn declared, "I definitely want to do this for my career". :-) So, now that is settled.

He definitely thinks Idaho is a great place, with great rivers for rafting and cousins to boot. Towards the end of summer, we got into a discussion about wealth and what a wealthy person might look like or behaviors of a wealthy person. I talked to him about how wealthy people go on extravagant vacations. After listening to what the definition of extravagant is, he determined, "Idaho is extravagantly nice."

Our summer in the Northwest was particularly hot, at one point he declared, "If I stay out in the car, I am going to turn into a turkey carcass." Channeling a little more Hank the Cowdog, my son referred to the mysteries of dating girls and possibly marrying one about the time we all got haircuts. He came up with this very important detail regarding appearance. He claimed, "If I ever get a girl to marry me, I don't want to look like a turkey buzzard."

Summer living around here combined with high temperatures made for many creative, cold meals. A couple noteworthy comments made by my first favorite child:

"Wow, this is the first meal Mom's made in like 3 days."

"This reminds me of the school year when you made us sandwiches every day."

AIDS

It is high time, I start looking for some smiles in my life.

So, let's just cut to the chase and start with AIDS. Now, AIDS is no laughing matter. I clearly remember being introduced to the possibility while sitting in Mr. Cattani's classroom in junior high. The school had television sets installed in every classroom, which was a very big deal. Part of the television contract at the time, included Channel One. Our school was supposed to listen to Channel One every day in exchange for all those TVs. Channel One is how I learned about Magic Johnson becoming infected with HIV.


My general "look" at about jr high age, notice hair scrunchie; I remember feeling my dress was scandalously low-cut

My son came home one day and out of the complete blue, approached me and asked if I had AIDS. Apparently, he had watched a film about AIDS (I am sure I was sent an email beforehand but I confess to major communication overload at the end of the school year).

Surprisingly, this conversation went back and forth a number of rounds. He seemed convinced I had AIDS. Finally, he asked if my mom had AIDS because "you know" I could have gotten it from her and passed it along to my children. I told him "No", yet another time and he then asked, "How do you know?" and I disrespectfully answered, "Because she would be dead."

There may be some truth to this: This past school year has been interesting in the way of girls for my boy. He was generally annoyed with girls last year. When he found out that the church name for girls who turn 12 in our congregation is, "Beehives", he incredulously asked, "is that because they sting you and buzz in your ear?" But, after a few weeks of school, I was happy to hear him announce, "some of the girls are actually pretty cool."

Triumph of Trevor Truelove - Papa

Middle School Miracle: each student checks out a laptop at the beginning of the year (in junior high). It is a pretty high tech gadget to trust an 11 year old. The school claims the laptops are worth $500 which would be the cost of replacement should the laptop need to be replaced. My son came home two days before laptop-turn-in-day saying, "Mom, I think I lost my laptop." I couldn't believe it. We went over every place he'd been at school. I even drove him to school early the next morning to retrace steps.

That evening, we determined his laptop must have been stolen. He dutifully wrote down three or four names of kids who could possibly be interested in stealing his laptop. That night, around 10:30 pm I got an email from a girl who sits across the table from him asking if we were missing a laptop. Hallelujah! It was like manna from heaven. I couldn't believe the laptop had been found.

Last Day of School - Island Sorbet Celebration

More end-of-school madness: on the last night before the last day of school, I was notified by my son that he had made a big plan with a "bunch" of other kids to ride their bikes "up" to school. My house is literally all downhill from the junior high so the kids were definitely planning to go up. They made their plan to leave at 6 a.m., giving them plenty of time to make it before the first bell at 7:45. I didn't think any kids would actually show up at the meeting place that early in the morning so I followed along and sure enough, one other boy was there, ready to ride. And, off the boys went happily arriving at the school around 7 a.m. giving them plenty of time to loiter. They had a blast.

Lastly, the ways my now twelve year old son have made me smile, just today are when he says things like answering my query of what his body would look like if I let him sit in the car while I ran inside the store: "a turkey carcass".

But, Mom . . .

Right now, my home is Harry Potter-crazed to the max. Since I read the first book to the kids last summer (Harry Potter turns 11 in the first book and my oldest turned 11 and received the book for his birthday, it was amazing timing), we have been on a wizard-muggle road to Hogwarts.

We are keeping the King County Library System hopping with all of the "holds" and checking out we are doing. We have the audio books, the real books, and the movies, just not all seven (from the series) at once. I think at this very moment, we have just one movie, two audio versions, and maybe one book.

I heard "damn" used in the story as I walked by the kids listening the other day. I channeled my inner Neil Fuller and said, "What are you listening to?" (only my brow wasn't furrowed and I don't think my voice was impatient --growing up, he seemed to ALWAYS walk in on movies during the worst part).

My nine-year old innocently looked up at me and said, "But Mom, this is damn good. You told us damn is a swear word when it is damn bad and this is just damn good. So, it is OK."

Out of the mouths of babes . . .

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Growing up in Idaho

Yesterday, when I came upon a car with an Idaho license plate that had a capital "I" followed by a space and then some numbers, I smiled. You see, in Idaho, many people have a license plate number that is associated with the county where they live. It is pretty awesome to be driving around the Idaho, the Pacific Northwest, or the whole country :-), see an Idaho car and immediately have a vague idea of where the person is from.

I texted a friend whose husband grew up in Idaho, or at least spent 4th grade in Idaho (state history - instruction done in 4th grade), and asked which county starts with an "I". Boy, I really failed coming up on this one myself. Of course, I should have thought, "Idaho County". He came up with the correct answer and then followed up with, "What about 2L?" I immediately came up with "Leadore" but I think the correct answer is "Lemhi".

There is no such thing as googling the correct answer in this game, you know.

In case you want to refresh your learning, check this page out. I did and learned there is no such thing as "Leadore" county. Shoot. Don't tell Mrs. Matthews.

Church-related humor

My son is almost twelve years old. We had a discussion the other day about what happens when a young man turns twelve who is active in our church, which is that he will be given the priesthood and be able to join a peer group from church called, "deacons". This is fairly familiar to him as he watches the deacons every week, administering the sacrament at church and now his closest friends are turning twelve.

I haven't talked with him much about the girls his age, meaning what groups they join upon turning twelve. So, the other day, I mentioned his friends would be joining the "beehives" church. His reaction was very funny. His eyes got big as he quickly answered, "Why beehives? Is it because they sting you and buzz in your ears?"

I've not considered this angle of the group named, "beehives" at church. In fifth grade, he observed the girls were very bossy, in fact once he said, "I don't ever want to marry one of those pesky girls." Now in sixth grade, he is having more of a mixed experience where he does still see some "won't even consider my input" girls but he has also mentioned that the girls are actually kind of nice :-).

The other "church" funny I want to remember is from the day we visited Grandma's ward in Idaho Falls. The song that was sung partway through the meeting was, "Master the Tempest is Raging" which I quite like. It talks about how Jesus Christ can both calm the literal storms of life and the figurative storms in our lives. When I mentioned that I really liked this song,  he replied, "So, did you sing this at your wedding?" 

Can you imagine? I hope Darren didn't think of that day as a raging tempest -- hee hee.