Test grades and why studying is so important…

Jack: Mom, I got back a Spanish test today.

me: Oh yeah? What’d you get? (Usually Jack trucks me into thinking he did poorly when actually he got a 100.

Jack: 15 out of 30. So not very good.

me: Really? How come you didn’t do that well, did you not study? I don’t remember you studying here so I hope you did in school…

Jack: Not Really.

me: Jack, if you have a test then the days leading up to the test are for studying. You know that.

Jack: it’s usually easy but I did t understand the questions. Oh and by the way, I have another Spanish test tomorrow.

me: Come on Jack, time to study! Get out your book and I’ll help you.

We flip to the page and I start to read exclamations in Spanish which have two answers to choose from as responses. You have to pick the most appropriate response to the first sentence.

me: Okay tell me what this means.. (I read the first exclamation.)

Jack: That means My feet are sore.

me: Ok answer A. Says Don’t take off your shoes and B. Says Take off your shoes. Which is the appropriate response?

Jack. A.

me: Huh? Jack, their feet hurt so why would you say to keep your shoes on. It’s B. Take off your shoes. I can see why your grade was low, it’s not Spanish we need to work on it’s your English! Sheesh.

Jack: This takes place in Argentina, which is full of broken glass probably, so they shouldn’t take their shoes off.

me: ??

Jack: Ok read the next one.

me: (reading poorly in Spanish) Ok what’s that mean?

Jack: it says “I’m tired”.

me: Answer A. Says to go to bed and answer B. Says to get up. Which is the correct response?

Jack: B.

me: Seriously? It’s A Jack… He’s tired so he should go to bed.

Jack: When I’m tired you make me get up for school so A is the right answer.

me: Grrrrrrrrrr…

Zelda Breadth of My Patience

Or Breath of the Wild as it’s more commonly known. My name is more accurate though…methinks? (I’ve also called it Breath of the Bad, Death of the Wild, Life and Death, etc, hahaha… Jack didn’t find it funny.)

me: Time to turn off the game Jack.

Jack: Can you give me 5 minutes to get my horse to a stable?

me: Really…

Jack: It’s a really good horse. Don’t worry, I’ll be fast. I have to register it.

me: As what, a sex offender?

Jack: (looks at me)

me: Well geez… what does that even mean?

Jack: I have to register it as mine so no one will take it. What should I name it?

me: Joe.

Jack: (silence)

Game: Yaaaahhhh!

me: What is that noise.

Jack: Nothing to see here…

me: Oy.

Moone Boy

Jack and I have been watching this Irish comedy Moone Boy for the past week or two. Totally addicting. It’s about this Irish kid with a grown up imaginary friend played by Chris O’Dowd, whom I love! His movies are hysterical…

We now say “feck” all the time which is hilarious and sort of an appropriate way to swear.

The accents are awesome and we sometimes have to stop and rewind certain parts because A. It’s so funny we want to hear it again or B. We have no feckin idea what they just said. It took us the complete first season just to make out the lyrics to the theme song, which only has two lines. Jack gets the credit for that one.

(When he was little he used to like getting credit for something and would always yell “I get da credid for dat one” in his baby voice lol. Just remembered that as I typed this.

Jack: Isn’t it weird how that guys face is totally at the bottom of his head?

me: Uh … what?

Jack: Look at his head, it’s all forehead and the bottom third of his head is where his face is.

me: Ooohhh yeah haha, he’s kind of funny looking. He’s been in other things, he’s kinda familiar.

Jack: You know who he looks like? There’s a character in Bolt that looks just like him. Do you remember? Did you see that movie?

me: Yeah I saw it. Maybe it’s the same guy…

Jack: Bolt is animated, I meant he looks like the guy…

me: Oh, maybe I didn’t see it.

Jack: Sigh.

Ha! Finally got him back for 12 years of “sighs”…

I hope everyone in our area is staying warm! Where’s me jumper?! (Watch the show and you’ll get it.)

Merry Christmas!!

Jack and I had a nice Christmas at home today. He didn’t wake up too early, and actually Moca and I were still asleep while Jack ripped through his stocking 🙂

I’m assuming every family with a boy aged 9-15 had to purchase at lease one Nintendo Switch, like I did. Or at least some gaming equivalent. Right?? It was all about the Switch all day.

I tried to keep the mess at a minimum because just this past Friday I knocked the whole darn tree over trying to get Bella out from under it and to an emergency vet appointment.

Yes, it was a very tall tree. Yes, it was a very huge mess.

Sadly, Bella became very sick very quickly and I had to have her put to final rest on Saturday night. Our sweet girl wasn’t with us for Christmas as she had been since 2003. We miss her terribly. Little did I know (though part of me suspected) that these would be the last photos I would take of my little kitty. 😦

I’ve been keeping myself (and Jack) occupied with many walks on the beach, in the woods and around the neighborhood with friends (ok just Kris), Jack and Moca. Many miles have been logged into my Fitbit as we enjoy our Christmas break.

Now, back to the presents and the mess. Is it terrible for me to ask Jack to crumple up the paper and toss it in the trash bag after he opens each present? Nahhhhh. But he felt a little differently.

Jack: Geez…Anyone else think of Christmas as a chore? (Crumple toss)

me: Just keep tossing your paper over here. You haven’t even gotten one in the bag yet. Come on. Pick up all the twisty ties before Moca eats them.

Jack: Sigh…

We had fun playing Mario Kart, I lost… and watching multiple Doctor Who episodes. Weeping angels!! (Shudder) And tonight we watched the Planet of the Apes first movie, which, I kept telling Jack, was awesome! Finally he relented and “allowed” me to rent it, and afterwards he said he really liked it. Guess we will be watching Apes 2 and 3 this week. Because it takes place in San Francisco it reminded me of all my trips out there. The first was when I was pregnant with Jack. We visited Muir Woods and I have a photo of me at the entrance sign, right where James Franco brings Caesar into the park for the first time. My pants were unbuttoned because I hadn’t yet transitioned to maternity pants LOl. (Moca is snoring right now and having doggie dreams next to me on the couch).

Jack liked the ending scene of the movie which was shot on the Golden Gate Bridge.

Jack: How come nothing like this happened when I was in San Francisco??

me: Apes taking over the bridge seems like a fun time to you? See? I told you it was a good movie.

Jack: It’s not a movie unless the Golden Gate Bridge gets destroyed or mutilated.

me: Touché.

Now we are full of hot cocoa, getting tired and ready for a long sleep. It will be nice having a few more days off this week. (Moca is really running in her sleep here!)

Here’s my view of her right now. Picture all 4 legs running in place and you’ll get the full effect haha.

We hope you had a great holiday and are enjoying the break! Here are a few more photos from today….

And of course the little beast ate her presents already and one ended up in the trash! Pitbulls have strong jaws and a crazy need to chew!! Ugh!

Merry Christmas everyone!

So this is Christmas!

I always get excited for Christmas. The presents and wrapping and lights and music and tree decorations and needles everywhere and returns and fattening food everywhere. Right? Aaahhhhhh.

Do you have a favorite Christmas tradition? I let Jack open one present on Christmas Eve. I think my parents let me open one on Christmas Eve so maybe that’s where I got that tradition.

Every year Jack and I cut down our tree and buy him a special ornament at the gift shop and get hot cocoa, etc. So that’s our thing.I’m all done shopping and wrapping and all the presents from “Santa” are ready to go. I mean, I’m sure Santa has his presents all ready to go 😉

me: So Jack, do you still believe in Santa?

Jack: Really? No.

me: Well then I guess he won’t deliver any presents then.

Jack: Ha. Ha. Not funny.

me: I’m serious, he won’t deliver presents unless you really believe. So do you?

I look back at him from the front seat of the car to see his look of disdain, one eyebrow raised. And to think, Jack first learned about parents delivering presents as Santa by reading my blog.

Isn’t it ironic? Don’tcha think? 😫

I hope I get a harmonica

Who loves Adam Sandler? We do! I forgot it was the first day of Hanukkah but coincidentally woke up singing his Hanukkah song. Obnoxiously, and changing the lyrics as I pleased.

me: So drink your gin and tonica…

Jack: Mom. Just. No.

me: (making breakfast) Jack today’s the first day of Hanukkah for real, so how funny that i woke up singing that song.

Jack: Yes, how Ironica.

me: 😳

On that note, have a happy Hanukkah everyone!

Funny Jokes

Is that redundant? LOL. Jack and I were driving to school this morning, we missed the bus, sort of on purpose. The alarm went off and I just didn’t want to get up. So I shut it off and pretended that we had a power outage ha ha. But of course cats and dogs have their internal clocks and they won’t let me sleep very long. 😦

Quick update on cats and dogs… Moca caught the lovely virus, or parasite rather, Giardia. This was right before Thanksgiving, and she’s only just now gotten slightly better. Talk about a skinny dog OMG. And Bella went in for dental surgery on Monday so she is in a little bit of pain this week and not eating well… as you could expect.

Jack broke his foot again for the second time, or toe rather, same foot same break same spot same everything.

My house is like an infirmary, the morning routine goes like this, feed the cat, feed the dog, feed the boy, give the cat liquid pain medicine, give the dog one and a half pills for tummy troubles, wrap the boys toe, wipe the dogs foot and other toe because she also has an infection LOL, makes probiotic in the dogs lunch so that the dog walker can feed that to her at noon, repeat.

But it’s the season of CHEER I tell you! Perpetual hope! I’m still smiling.

So, we were driving to school and I was listening to Christmas music and being goofy and telling dumb jokes, and laughing at them by myself naturally.

Jack: that’s not funny.

Me: what? You mean my joke? Oh I get it, it’s not funny because no one’s laughing.

Jack: no, it’s not funny because you don’t know how to tell a joke.

Me: Sigh.

Liquid Cats

me: Check out this picture I saw on Facebook! Haha.

Jack: Liquids take the shape of the container they’re poured into. Therefore cats are liquid.

Half-scale Tissue Box

Words I never thought I’d type in the same sentence haha.

I found this box in my office at work and laughed. Everyone always commented on the mini tissue box and it’s been here for months… maybe even since last summer. I can’t quite remember when jack made it.

I move it from surface to surface when I clean. Very rare indeed. And today I moved it again and happened to look at the bottom.

Too funny. Jack has a great sense of humor and he always cracks me up. I’m still working on getting him to use his powers for good! Not evil! 🙂

I recently went to his school conferences and each teacher pretty much had the exact same story to tell:

Jack is a very good student and a lot of fun to have in class. He seems to really enjoy learning and participates quite frequently. He’s known for his humor and one-liners, and if something comical is going on, Jack is probably in the middle of it. We moved his seat so that he wasn’t so centrally located and his friends were moved to the other side. Jack is very smart and does the work very quickly. He might be a bit distracting when he finishes so we are working on having him slow down a bit.

me: Jack, I told them to give you another assignment if you complete your work that fast….

Jack: What? How come? I’m smart enough to get it done quick so I shouldn’t get punished.

me: Well… you can’t distract the other kids that need the extra time to do their work.

Jack: That’s not fair.

me: It was sort of a joke so I don’t really think they’ll do that. But all your teachers really like having you in class.

Jack: That’s because I’m likable.

me: And modest.

Cold Weather Makes Things Scarier

Doesn’t it?

Are you scared on a balmy summer evening as you stroll down the street in your neighborhood, looking at the moon and watching for that first star to show itself so you can make a wish. You hear the crickets and the frogs chirping… the sounds of children laughing in the distance as they take one last dip into the pool.

Nah. Nothing scary about that.

Now drop the temperature 50 degrees, add a little wind, some dry leaves scuttling across the pavement, leafless tree branches clacking together like the dried brittle bones of a lonely wandering skeleton, a dog barking in the distance, a twig snaps in the woods nearby…you get the idea…

Jack and I were out on a walk with Moca, it was dark and we carried flashlights. The moon was pretty bright so we turned off the flashlights to let our eyes adjust so we could enjoy the darkness.

me: Are you ready for Halloween next week?

Jack: I need a costume but other than that, yeah.

me: I hope it doesn’t get too cold … I hate walking around freezing my butt off.

Jack: I don’t want it to be freezing because then you can’t even see your costume, but I don’t want it to be warm either. The cold makes everything seem scarier!

He shivered a little with the thought, and I had to agree. The cold Fall weather and longer darker nights make it prime time for some good scares. We will definitely watch some classic scary movies this weekend and into next week. We just finished the original IT by Stephen King what are some of your go-to scary movies? Comment and let us know!