The mind of a 12 year old boy.

Today was shopping day for me. Every other weekend, my sister, Holly, and I do our 2 week grocery shopping. Usually we are armed with coupons and a shopping list complete with price comps from all of the flyers. (we usually only shop at Super Walmart since they price comp with all the stores). Today, being sunday, was a little different. We werent prepared, and mostly just winged it. I did have a rough idea of what I wanted to fix for dinner, so it wasnt a complete throw it in the cart and hope we have something to go with it kind of trip.

We had been there about a hour and a half when we hit the meat isle. We were all tired and hungry. Not that had anything to do with what Michael did. He's a boy and cant help himself. They had a 10 lb roll of hamburger meat for $10. Now this was cool cuz the only meat that came close was $1.26 a lb, and came in the 5 lb roll, which is what usually bought. I had never seen a roll of meat this big. (insert laughs). I picked mine up, keeping all comments to myself being in the presence of two young impressionable boys. Holly asks Michael to pick hers up and well, you can imagine what he did with it. I busted out laughing. Of course he did it. What 12 year old boy WOULDNT?? Of course Holly was moritfied. I told her tho, I think i'd be more worried if he hadnt thought of it, ya know?

I still want to know who thought of the 10lb roll of meat tho.

Why I love Tony...

Tony, my 19 year old step son, moved in with us two weeks ago. Up until this past christmas, he and his father havent seen each other for 11 years (long story). So now everyone is getting reacquanted and all honkey dorey. It's wierd going from the occaisonal kid in the house to having a 19 year old (male) there all the time. In some ways i'm glad we havent had any kids of our own yet, so that he and and V. can have all of this time, undisturbed, to get reaquainted and form that bond.

He's a cool kid. Goofy, and very much his fathers son.

1. He likes old black and white musicals.
2. He likes spending time playing play station with his dad.
3. He takes the trash out without being asked.
4. He says 'yes ma'am' which makes me feel old.
5. When i was having a crappy day at work he cleaned the whole house for me.
6. He's not afraid of working for something.
7. He has his dad's sense of humor.
8. He spends more time on aol or texting one of his girlfriends than i did when i was in high school.
9. He called me at 8 oclock on my birthday to be the first one to say happy birthday.
10. He always says thank you when i give him a ride to work.

One bird, two fish

My sister called me the other night just bawling her eyes out. Her husband and two sons (11,8) were out of town skiing, so of course at first i was like what the hell is wrong? After a few minutes of heavy crying, i understood the word bird. The boys have two pet birds, and amazingly they complimented their personalities. There was the quiet bird and the loud bird. Well, the loud bird had died and the quiet bird was pecking it trying to wake it up. This was freaking my sister out even more. She is deathly afraid of birds, so the thought of scooping out this dead bird and disposing of it was up there with plucking her toenails out with pliers. Just wasnt gonna happen. As luck would have it i hadnt gone to bed yet, was just in my jammies. So off i went to help my younger sister out, as we older sisters do. When i got there, there was a cat up on the roof just meowing its head off. All of the dogs in the neighborhood were barking (wasnt a full moon) and i guess being night it was afraid to jump off the roof for fear of there being a pack of hungry poodles below. So i positioned my car to shine the lights directly under where he was so he could jump to safety. This of course did not help my sisters mood.
After collecting the deceased bird and disposing of it, we had to go to walmart to get the other bird some food and treats. Again, i'm in jammies, a sweatshirt and grubby keds. Now i used to do this when i was in my early 20's, just go to walmart in the middle of the night in my jammies, just because i was lazy and i loved the stuck up looks i got. Now that i'm in my early thirties, a mom, and getting to the point that bed is calling me by 9:30, this was new to me. I still got the looks, but hey, what can i say. They were cute bingo flannel jammies at least.
She decided to get him 2 beta fish to replace the bird. Not quite the same, but we found a cute tank that seperated them (i had no idea that you couldnt have beta fish in the same tank or they would kill each other. makes sense to me). A boy fish and a girl fish. And off we went.
The next evening I called my nephew to see how he was doing and he was taking it really hard. I froze for aminute. What do you say to a 8 year old who's bird just died? Some how 'i'm sorry sweetie' just doesnt seem to cut it. I began to panic. I didnt want to seem unsensitive, i mean this bird meant alot to him. It would sing with him every night for an hour while he practiced piano. How were the fish going to sing with him? There are certain questions that i think only a mom can answer, and for me i took the weenie way out and my phone lost connection.

Follow the clues...

We had my sister Emma (12) and my autistic brother Stevie (who will be 18 next week) spend the night last night. We try to do that at least once a month. We used to have just emma spend the night, give her some one on one attention. Then one day Stevie was like well when can i spend the night? I never thought he would want to so i had never asked. It's so hard to tell what he's really thinking about sometimes. Half the time you would swear he's not listening to you and he's lost in his own world (in fact if you ask him he'd tell you he's 'thinking') but then he'll come up and answer something you asked four hours before. But we both love having them both over here. So last night i pick them up while Vinnie is rearranging the living room. Every 4-5 months he gets a bug up his butt and rearranges the whole house. Normally this doesnt bother me, but seeing as how we're getting new carpet in a month and have to move everything out so they can install it i thought it was a waste of time, but what do i know. So we get home and i teach Emma how to make homemade burritos. Not that hard to do, but new to her. We watched 'Barnyard' or whatever it was called. That new animated movie with the cows. It was cute, some hilarious parts, some so so. Glad we waited for dvd. The 'kids' (the 2 plus Vinnie) stayed up til 1:30 playing games on the xbox, which is the real reason Steve likes to come over. He likes to have some real compition on a game. Today we decided to play clue. Emma and i had played it over christmas when Brittany was here, but Steve hadnt played in a while. So we taught him while we played. It was cute cuz he would ask a question, like i think it was Mr. Green in the Library with the rope and when you showed him a card he was like 'oh sorry'. I thought he was getting the hang of it til he was like 'my card is getting full'. I told him that meant when he had them all full except one box that that one box was the right answer. And he did that 'nonononono' thing he does and showed me his paper. I hadnt been paying attention and I guess everytime he had aked a question he would mark all three things, not just the one shown to him. So we started over, and he won! I was so proud, and he was so tickled. During the game the movie "clue" was brought up, so after the game was over we put that on. They both got a kick out of it. I had forgotten how much fun board games were. When Vinnie and I started dating and we were going thru a real poor peroid that was our entertainment. After dinner every night we would play a game. I miss that. I wouldnt give up my cable tv or internet but i'd like that quiet alone time again. Maybe i'll have to institute a weekly game night, where the tv and computer never come on. I might be able to get him to go for that.....