Does anyone know what a warlock is? Or does?

Friday was Free Dress day with a Halloween theme at St. Jude (if you paid $1 per child to benefit the Beta Club). Fifty-three pound Jake still fits in the jack-o-lantern shirt my mom got him two Halloweens ago, but I did not tell him it was that old. Corey found Landen a new shirt at the Wal-Marts, which he did not want to wear until he found out it glowed in the dark.

Do all little boys look adorable in blue jeans? I have one with no hiney and one with a round hiney, but both are equally dapper when they wear jeans. I told Jake he looked like a small version of a grown man in jeans, and he said "thanks, I'm mature."

Tonight I was at work for the trick-or-treating festivities (darn) and Corey confessed that he was secretly hoping the boys would get conduct marks or in trouble on the bus and he would not have to take them. We are taking the Carrot approach to parenting: no level of removing their right to attend extracurricular activities or power on electronics will get them to adjust their behaviors, so we have started holding desirables in front of them. For the last two weeks they have been warned that just because we bought the costumes does not mean they have automatically won the right to wear them anyway. That right has to be earned.

We reinforced this for two weeks. Predictably, today Jake came home with a conduct mark for saying a game at his Halloween party was "stupid," for which I ripped him a new asshole (via phone from work) about how we are absolutely never rude. I pulled out the full name and demanded suggestions for what he SHOULD have said. Landen got a mark for forgetting to bring all his materials to class. So both of them were allowed to go door-to-door but neither of them were permitted to enjoy not one single smidge of candy out of their full buckets when they returned home.

Apparently this does not prevent the enthusiasm of going galavanting around the neighborhood in a ninja or warlock costume and asking people for candy. They have been on a sugarless high, upstairs giggling and playing. Corey had some notes to share with y'all about taking the boys trick-or-treating for the first time in several years:

• Landen was fifty feet from the house before he started complaining about his feet hurting.
• He had to tell Jake to "slow down" and wait for him before they were at the end of the block.
• They did not grasp the concept of "walk toward the porch lights" and kept asking Corey for which direction to turn.
• Apparently a plastic staff is too heavy to hold upright for long walks.

Behold, Corey's photography (and my cutesy edits.)

I asked Corey why Landen was wearing his Heelys, which always blister his feet, and Corey's exact words were "Because you weren't here and you're the better parent." There it is, immortalized on the Internets for all eternity.

At some point they met Jake's friend and classmate and our neighbor Grant and hit some houses together. Grant was a Dementor and his little brother a penguin.

Don't those buckets look like they are getting heavy. They're about 60% full from just out little neighborhood. I had one piece and Corey had three after the boys went to bed.

And Cydney Wilson partied like a Halloween Rock Star this weekend - first as Darth Vader (in a leather corset?) and then as a wolf (with no hair on her stomach.)

 
I just do not understand where these kids get all this energy. I cannot remember if my last dress-up Halloween was 2002 or 2005 or 2006. I repurposed a prom dress and went as a fairy all three years.

An Exercise in Redemption and Dexterity

The last time I carved a pumpkin, my mother was holding the knife. I'm thinking I was about ten, before it was not longer adorable to entertain me and before I discovered boys. A couple days ago I was in Fresh Market and they had big gorgeous pumpkins, so I came home and asked Corey if he wanted to carve pumpkins this weekend. He said no. So this morning when I was at Albertson's and they had huge pumpkins two for $6, I did what he loves so very much for me to do. I bought two of them. 

I'm so very tired of being that beast that fusses and bitches and corrects short people all day. Landen is grounded for yet another conduct mark, so he's without electronics privileges for the weekend. I grabbed a little bit of daylight this evening and surprised Landen with my two big pumpkins. I sent Corey a bunch of stencils today to print, so while we waited for him to come home with those, the boys and I set about prepping the pumpkins for carving.

First you have to start with a giant pumpkin. I do not remember watching my mom struggle so much to get a knife through a pumpkin top. Also, how are you supposed to cut that shit in a circle? Mine could barely be described as an octagon.

Thankfully Landen was willing and eager to scoop out the guts of the pumpkins. It's so very nasty and icky and gooey and that's just the shit that boys are made of. 

Not surprising, Jake was much more interested in the knives than in the goo that is the center of the pumpkin. Also, please notice how he crosses his toes.

See?! Excited about the ick. He actually did a great job of using the ice cream scoop to scrape the seeds and the pumpkins bits from the pumpkins and then use his very own digits to pull the yuck out. If you have a dog who helps you do everything and eats a bunch of goo, do not freak out. It's not poisonous to dogs.

This is the look of a boy who has been commanded for the last time not to touch that knife and who is trying with every fiber of his little being to not touch the knife again. 

So when Corey got home we taped the stencils to the pumpkins and used safety pins to poke a bunch of holes in the lines of the stencil. Corey and I worked on a pumpkin and Jake and Landen worked on a pumpkin.

Here you might be shocked to find a photo of the very husband who, when asked whether he would like to carve pumpkins, denied any desire to participate in the activity. Yet here he sits, at dusk in our driveway, poking holes in a pumpkin with a safety pin. That's why I keep him. 

And Cousin It came to our pumpkin-carving party.

Have I ever mentioned on here that the only activities that Murphy does not participate in are ones that involve nudity? There is nothing a member of his family (maybe mostly me) can engage in that he does not want to be right in the middle of. Folding clothes? Invited. Waking the boys up in the morning? Him first. Carving a pumpkin? Sign him up. 

As night fell and I went off to grill steaks and make homemade potato skins, Corey was left with the cutting, led by the light of the MagLight Landen was holding. 

It is really hard to cut a pumpkin. It does not slice easily, and the two I got were really thick. It took the strength and dexterity of Corey's hands to get them cut, even though we did not make it through the process with the center part of the "A" intact.

At the end, we had a pumpkin with a regular nose and a bat for a mouth.

And the outline of the letter "A."

After they were done I took them outside and sprayed them with a bleach-water mixture to keep them from molding and getting nasty before Halloween. After they dry, I'll be rubbing the cut edges with Vaseline, which is supposed to prevent them from drying and shrinking.

Both little boys thought the pumpkin process was fun. We talked about how much they remember their mom liked Halloween. They were really excited to see the candles light up the inside of the pumpkins. Next year, Landen wants to help Corey combine two different stencils to make a "Two-Face" pumpkin. Jake wants to draw his own stencil. I'd just like to make an intact "A." We managed to get through it without anybody yelling or snarling or snapping at anyone. 

Happy Weekend, Internets!

Allbrittons by the numbers: October edition

There are so many random, often ridiculous, events that occur in the daily life of on of these Allbrittons, but they are not all riveting enough to warrant their own blog post. I like to do these little recaps for you, just so you do not get the sense that 1-2 posts per week means that nothing happens. For instance,

Three is the number of conduct marks my youngest boy got IN ONE DAY last week. The next time this happens, she will send him to the principal's office to be disciplined, and we've made clear what happens when he gets home should things again escalate to that level.

Four is the number of teachers and administrators who participated in my parent/teacher conference at school this morning. It was scheduled prior to the earning of three marks in one day, which is probably why the Principal and the Assistant Principal got added to the meeting this morning.

Seventeen is the number of years I predict I will walk around with the feeling that someone heavy is standing on my chest and occasionally jumping. Extend that if there is a third Allbritton added to our brood in the next couple years. I base this number off the fact that my parents are seeming to relax a little, finally, now that my sister is 24 and pursuing a direction in life. I'm thinking Landen will be 25 before I can say "f*ck it" and let the chips fall where they may.

Eight thousand, eight hundred is the number of dollars that someone else's insurance company paid to have my car restored to its purchased condition. It's better than it was before it was wrecked, since I had dinged it twice: once on my garbage cans and one on a car parked too close behind me. The amount that same insurance company pays moi for hurting my shoulder and pinching a nerve in my back better be considerably more than this.

One is the number of the lesson in the life rulebook that I propose should be "Never be at fault in a wreck with a lawyer's daughter."

Seven is the number of A's that Landen had on his report card. He had a "B" in P.E., which lends something to the "nurture" column of the nature vs. nurture debate on how children turn out, because I'm pretty sure I went out and got mono in high school to get out of P.E. for six weeks. The puzzling thing about this is that he's only had one week of P.E. I asked him why he has a B, just curiously, and he believes it to be that he slides around the floor in his socks too much. He somehow emerged from the nine weeks with a B+ in conduct, which I said I could not believe. To this he responded with "Me neither."

Last night after I yelled at him and sent him to his room for disobeying me by playing on the bus and getting in trouble for it, I told him that he makes me smile and I'm not happy when he's not here. This is a very confusing relationship between parent and eight-year-old son.

Six is the number of A's that Jake brought home on his report card. I'm really going to count and say it's seven, because he has not taken art yet, and Landen has. There is no doubt that when Jake Allbritton takes art, he will make an A in it. What Jake will never make an A in is penmanship. This frustrates Corey because he cannot read what Jake writes. I say "pick your battles," because Jake can read his own writing, and apparently the teacher can read it well enough to mark his answers right or wrong, so I do not harp on how many extra lines he puts in the number "6." And just to give you a sense of how different Landen's conduct is than Jake's - Jake got an A in conduct, and that's WITH detention for slapping Landen in the face.

If you know the parents of this boy, please slap them in the head for not being more attentive to the growth of the child's hair. This is immortalizaed in the St. Jude yearbook for all eternity. Also, please send $5 bills postmarked to The Tooth Fairy at our address because Jake keeps pulling his teeth.

More than eighty-five is how many pounds of intruder have been occupying my marital bed this week. Could you tell this face she had to sleep on the couch or the floor?

In the past, she's made me sleep in the middle. I've been putting my foot down lately, so she's been sleeping in the middle. She does not care for this mandate.

Fifty-two is the number of lines that you have to write for me when you come home with a conduct mark for not following the rules at St. Jude.

Twenty-four is the average number of points our flag football team scores in a ball game. If you live in Baton Rouge and want your kid to play flag football for the YMCA, email me and I'll tell you which coach to ask for. We have stomped every team they've given us. We only have one game left.

Twenty is the number of minutes you have to read in my house after you finish your homework and before any electronics are powered on, IF you have not gotten yourself grounded from electronics for the evening. The Cub Scouts say that as long as I am feeding you adequate (not delicious) meals, clothing you, getting you medical attention and sending you to school, I am not neglecting you. I am not required to let you participate in extracurricular activities, buy you toys, take you to the movies or restaurants, have a television for you to watch or a video game for you to play or buy you trendy clothing. I would add that if I am not teaching you the value of reading and comprehension, I am also neglecting you.

Thirty is the number of minutes that Jake hi-yahs in tae kwon do every Thursday. He has another month of his introductory course at the YMCA, and then if he wants to continue, I can get a second mortgage to pay for his continued lessons at the dojo. The best thing that has come out of this for me is that when you give him what he wants or command him to do something, he bows in gratitude or acquiescence.

Seven-hundred-sixty-nine is the number of miles between me and the nearest military school that will accept fourth graders. Fun fact.

The first time I've ever been sorry we have no traffic on our street

And....

We're finished! Last weekend we, and I mean mostly Corey because I had the sore shoulder, did a trial run on the back door in preparation for The Big Job this weekend - the front door. It took almost the entire breezy, unplanned weekend to finish it, but it's amazing. Thom Filicia came to me in a dream and told me the color I first painted on the back door (Meridian Blue) was the wrong color, that it needed to be Pacific Palisades. No really. He was that specific, except he used numbers from the paint card. So we sanded the back door a little so that it would hold the paint, and Corey slapped a coat of Benjamin Moore's Pacific Palisades on there early Saturday afternoon. I also spray painted the hardware Carbon Mist.

By Saturday night we had removed the numbers and hardware, sanded, cleaned, taped off, primed and applied one coat to the front door, and I sent this teaser photo to my cheer squad.

This afternoon, after our trip to the Halloween store, we put the second coats on the trim and the door and painted the hardware. The trim for the door was formerly black, and unfortunately we did not get an exact match to the existing trim for the door trim, but here's hoping you did not notice until I told you!

We had to keep swapping where the baby gate goes to keep Murphy inside. The letters and door hardware are Rustoleum Carbon Mist. The paint is Behr Exterior Semi Gloss matched to Benjamin Moore's Pacific Palisades. 

It is exactly the dramatic effect I was going for!

Last night both boys said they did not really like it. Landen said he did not think turquoise went with brown, and asked who I was to say that it did. Corey left a little bit ago to take him to Cub Scouts, and apparently once Landen saw the full effect of the door with the numbers and the hardware on the house, he approved of my color selection and understands my vision.

I have vision, you know. I often do not have the funds or the motivation to do my vision any good.

Here's a side-by-side of what we bought, which was adequate and lovely, and how we improved it to fit us.

I love my house. I get excited when I turn down my street because I know I will get to see my house soon. I hope for the same for all of you.

The next project I am going to attempt to get Corey to agree to is painting the boys' bathroom. It looks like their bathroom in our former apartment. Extremely non-personal. Here are the swatches. I am thinking the darkest green - Fresh Parsley - for the cabinets and the Olive Martini or the Courtyard for the walls. The trick is figuring out what to do with the countertop, which is light and cream-colored.

Camping practice and costume shopping

I do not know who is more excited about Cub Scouts. (I know I am the least excited.) Corey went to the Scout Store on Friday and spent more than $200 but less than $300 on ONE Scout uniform for each boy. One. Despite the blow to his banking abilities, Corey talked about the Scouts all night on Friday night. 

Next weekend is their first camp out at the Boy Scout camp about an hour from here. Corey cannot go because he has drill next weekend, and I am not going because I am not an Outdoor Girl. This is a rite of passage I feel no need to participate in. I took Jake to a Scout meeting last month that was held outside, and I sat in my air-conditioned car for the duration of it. Their pawpaw is taking them on the camp out next weekend. People are excited. 

Because he was not going to be available to take them on their first Scout camp out, Corey decided that he would camp in the backyard this weekend. Then they had a vote and decided it was way too warm for the three of them to be rolling around a tent together, so he decided to fire up the fire pit we got last Christmas and roast hot dogs for supper Saturday night. 

Jake is clearly not a fan of fire. I am not sure how he is going to fair at a camp site. He ended up putting something over his face that would not burn his eyes. His hot dog was barely warm. He is like Murphy. He circles the fire, but would prefer not to go near it. Too smoky. Hopefully he does not outgrow this and thus will not spend much time in bars in college.

Landen is a little pink from the noon sun we all endured at the flag football game yesterday. Our team is the best team in our age group in YMCA flag football, by the way. They do not keep score, but we do, and you do not want to play against the purple team. We are in the end zone at least five times per game. We have two kids on our team who zip around the field like The Flash. And every one of our kids can zero in on the guy with the ball and pull his flag. If we cannot get your flag, one of our teammates will throw himself down on the ground in your bath and you will fall over him.

Landen is a little more fearless than Jake.

After hot dogs, there was marshmallow roasting. Landen is terrible at this because he is afraid of turning his marshmallow black. He's had this issue in the past, apparently. The best way to eat a roasted marshmallow is with half of a Hershey bar, between two graham cracker halves, like this:

And people, this was my FIRST S'more in life. In 31 years of life, I have never eaten this. I wish the graham crackers would get soft, but me loves a warm marshmallow and a warm chocolate bar. Ooshy, gooshy loveliness. 

Pay attention to Murphy in the background scrounging for food. This was after he ate his dinner of a hot dog mixed with some dog food. The Allbritton boys ended up dropping a marshmallow on purpose onto the mesh cover of the fire pit to let it melt all down into the fire. Then they dumped a bunch of water on it and peed in the grass. I long for a baby girl.

Last weekend I made a deal with the boys that if I got no notes from any teachers this week (for missing homework or forgetting a book) I would take them to the Halloween store so they could have first pick of costumes. It proved to be quite the incentive, and this morning I got everyone out of the house at noon to go costume shopping. 

When they're teenagers, they will be horrified that they have been on the internet in pictures like this, forced to wear goofy glasses in the costume store. 

Jake really did like this hat. Last year I bought him an aviator cap that he wears around the house. I guess Landen thinks pharoahs are supposed to look mean.

Have you ever noticed that once you get your children started with playful behavior, they cannot figure out how to turn it off? This is a dangerous phenomenon when the Disciplinarian begins sword combat with them in the middle of the Halloween store.

We have had a home improvement project going on here this weekend, but we also have two Den meetings this evening. Corey got the uniforms squared away and the boys have been hanging out in them for the last hour. They will both get their Bobcat badge this afternoon. The pants are those kind that zip off into shorts. We heard one of the boys saying "I don't usually like to wear shorts but I do now because I look good in this." 

See for yourself.  

When I saw them, I cried. They're growing so much and they are such happy kids, which is just a miracle considering what they went through last year to get to this smiling, achieving place. I told them that their mom would be so proud to see them in the Scout uniforms, and Jake said "she sees," and hugged and kissed me. 

What else does YOUR dining table do?

I have an aunt who has a house that is always in pristine, magazine-ready condition. It actually was in a magazine once. She raised a child and kept a house that way. You can ask the child how she felt about that. So in this blog, when I am often apologizing for the condition of my house in photos, she responds to me that the pictures of my house make her realize that she has no idea how real people live.

This inspires me to break it down using a scene from today. The boys come in a little before 4:00 pm. They walk themselves from where the bus drops them off at the stop sign, which is one house away from mine. I can hear the bus stop, so I know when they should be walking in the door. I'm usually upstairs in my office, so they come in, get a snack and a drink and wait for me to come down. I do and we get out all the folders and books and assignment pads and start organizing for their homework session, which has to be completed plus a parent-required reading period before any electronic devices can be turned on. This is a scene from about 4:30 pm today.

As you can see, my dining room is not just our dining room. It is also the Instructional Zone.

1.  Usually I park in the carport and come in the back door, so my purse is typically NOT on the dining room table. It prefers to be on the table in the sunroom. Today my car was parked in front of the house, so here rests my purse. You cannot see that my purse is sitting on top of three days of mail and catalogs. This is riveting information that now has you on the edge of your seat waiting for #2. You're welcome.

2.  Here sits my oldest boy, doing a little English workbooking. You may notice that his hair is significantly shorter than all the conversations you and I have had about his long, luxurious crown of hair and pictures we've exchanged since this summer. We had to get a little corrective haircut for him. He twists the front of his hair so much that he is giving himself a bald spot. I do not know how to get him to quit. He has to do that himself. Either he will force himself to stop for fear of being embarrassed to death when I send him to school with no hair in the front of his head. Or he's going to pull all the hair from the front of his head and will not have anything to twist anymore.

3. This is the oldest boy's assignment pad. You cannot tell from the photo, but Jake has the worst handwriting I've ever seen. I decide to pick my battles and leave that problem to his teachers.

4. This is Landen's assignment pad. He has beautiful handwriting, but he is slow as frigging molasses when he has to write in cursive.

5. Landen is going on his second field trip of the year and this is the permission slip we have to sign when we send $7 to the school for him to go. Jake has had no field trips. Poor middle schoolers. I also take calls and answer emails on my Blackberry while the boys do their homework. We do the things they may need my help with first (math) and then I go back up to my office and leave them to copy definitions or write their spelling words three times by themselves. I'm reinforcing the school's attempts to teach third graders and fifth graders some independence.

6.  This is my youngest child, who never misses an opportunity to be a ham and a half. He's supposed to be doing his math homework - subtracting money with three or more digits and decimals - not trying to commandeer a static picture I am trying to take. Landen always comes home with food on his white shirt. In this picture he has chocolate on the corners of his mouth from the ice cream sandwich he ate when he got home. Last night we got in a fight because he could not grasp the concept of not getting seconds of macaroni and cheese.

7.  There are real apples in a bowl on the table, not the faux fruit that is usually there. We are also rocking a tablecloth and my fancy seagrass chargers. Why not the plastic polka-dotted placemats we usually have? Because we had grown up friends over for dinner Saturday night, and we set the table for grown people. It just takes us a long time to unset it. We do this incrementally over a number of days.

8.  This is Jake's old people medicine holder because it's the only way his parents can remember when they check whether they gave him his medicine in the morning, a mere five minutes after he swallows it.

9.  Those two shoeboxes contain the new church shoes their mawmaw bought them this weekend, because they have grown out of their old church shoes. She dropped them off on Sunday. On Tuesday, they are still sitting on my table.

10.  In the distance is a bottle of pet stain remover sitting on my antique side table. Murphy sharted on my white chair the other night and I JUST washed the slipcover, so I was trying to remove the sight and smell with some industrial strength cleaner, which is a no-go. The only way to get shart off a white slipcover is to wash it.

11. YOU may keep ice in the ice bucket on your rolling bar cart. Or at least leave it empty and clean so you can put ice in it on a moment's notice. Not I. My kids have AMAZING bedhead in the morning. We spray their hair with water and detangler and spray gel to make them presentable for school while they eat their breakfast and drink their coffee milk at the table. Then we store it in the handy place in the dining room, because that's where children's hair products are supposed to go.

Miraculously the mess gets cleared enough for the four of us to take our meals here. I inspire my dining table to multitask as efficiently as I do (I cook and work at the same time) and I'm pretty proud of that. And don't worry about there not being room for that distant-future third Allbritton boy child to do their homework and take their meals. The table extends.