Results tagged “T.” from Bill's Words

My elder son and I were looking at a picture of a memorial brick which has our family’s name on it.

“How do you get ‘in a brick?’” he asked. I explained.

Then my wife said, “Or you can forget to pay Jabba who will hire some bounty hunters to hunt you down and put you in a brick…”

It made my day.

Tonight, the two boys were arguing about who really needed that particular piece of Lego. It started to get ugly when one of the boys said quietly to the other, “This is not the Lego piece you need.” He accompanied his statement with a clockwise hand wave.

The other responded, equally as quietly, with a “This is the piece of Lego that I need.” Also with the hand wave.

And thus ended the argument, with laughter.

T. and I just looked at each other and shook our heads knowingly, wondering if “Wax on, wax off” might apply here, too.

These are the offspring you are rearing…

Article here.

In response to an NPR piece I heard today in which the author said that he had to curtail his dating activities because driving all over California to make dates is just too expensive because of high gas prices, I wrote this:

As in any marriage, there are the good times, and there are the bad times. My wife and I are enduring “the bad times” right now, and we’re working very, very hard on surviving them and rebuilding our marriage from the ground up. And because of that, we’re essentially dating again.

Of course, we’ve had traditional dates, the kind where you hop in the car and drive to dinner. But more recently, they’ve taken a much less mechanized, fuel-inflamed turn. Enter: bicycles.

As winter ended, she decided that she was going to begin commuting by bike to work to save gas money, so she did the research and purchased herself a very nice bicycle. Her commute is about 15 miles each way through the rolling (and sometimes steep hills) of Connecticut. Pretty soon, she was biking to work as often as possible and felt ready to go out on her bike with me.

Already an avid cyclist, I regularly ride almost 100 miles per week as a diversion from life’s annoyances and in pursuit of “health,” whatever that is. But I’d never ridden my bicycle with my wife. That first ride was very short and, well, the word probably is “tense” for both of us as we discovered our limits. There were the physical limits, of course, but there were the mental, emotional limits. Could we joke with each other? (Yes.) Complement, or even criticize, each other on our riding technique or the like? (Yes.) Could we talk about the serious things of a relationship on a ride? (Yes.) Could we even talk over the huffing and puffing? (Well, sometimes.)

There have been other rides since that first ride. I’ve started riding to work every now and then (23 miles each way, also steep at times). And, yes, we’ve talked, we’ve learned, we’ve enjoyed each other’s company. We’ve found “health.” And we’ve saved on gas, too.

Though it’s going to take me another 240+ rides and her another 400+ rides to pay for the bikes, the high price of gas has been, for us, a welcome addition to our life together.

(But now that we’re riding, could we have cheap gas once again, please?)

T. and the boys were working on an art project this past week, part of which involved drawing a picture of an alphabet block. You know the kind, I’m sure.

Well, T. drew the block, rendered nicely in 3-D, and put the “N” on the front. “Now, O., what can we put on the side that starts with ‘N?’”

“Hmmm… how about negotiation?”

The mind boggles… nut… necklace… nickel… nose… needle… nail… negotiation?

T. called to let me know of a conversation that she and O. had in the car this morning.

O.: Oh, Mom, remember that today is Smoke Wednesday.

T.: What? Smoke Wednesday?

Think… think… think…

T.: Oh, you mean Ash Wednesday?

O.: Yeah! That’s it!

I reflected on the spaghetti-covered plate in the sink, the spaghetti covered sleeve that was a direct result of the spaghetti on the plate, and remembered that he will eventually grow up and that the spaghetti will no longer be a problem. But then, too, neither will we hear of Smoke Wednesdays anymore, either.

There are some days I want my boys to grow up faster. But God designed them to grow up at exactly the right rate. Guess I’ll just have to learn to deal with that.

I heard some of the best advice I’ve ever heard regarding the so-called “Chinese Poison Train” from the Lovely and Talented Wife, T.

Her take?

“Do you really think the Chinese have changed their manufacturing process over the past few decades and that they’re all-of-a-sudden using lead-based ingredients? I don’t think so. So should you worry? Well, unless your kid is eating Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends, no, most likely not.”

In other words, if it wasn’t a problem about a decade ago, it probably isn’t a problem now, either. Relax. And if you really are worried, then get your kid’s lead level tested.

‘Nuff said.

(I found this in my journal just now—in 2007!—a conversation from June of 2001 when W. was just over three years old.)

Yesterday, the conversation between W. and me went something like this:

Me: You’ll get ice cream with chocolate sauce in a bowl.

W.: In a bowl?

Me: Yes.

W.: No, I’d rather have it in a crunchy bottle.

(pause)

T.: He means “a cone.”

So the Lovely and Talented Wife (tip of the hat to and blatant rip-off of FlagrantDisregard.com) tells me the following story:

O. was in a public bathroom (the one at the church) as T. had taken him there. He had to poop, so had plenty of time to notice his surroundings.

“Mom, what’s that bar for?” he asked, referring to the handrail on the wall.

“That’s for old people who might need it to help them get up and down off the toilet,” T. replied.

Think. Think. Think.

“So, Dad will be needing that pretty soon, huh?”

One foot in the grave. One foot already in the grave.