Whining Animals

I had enough whites to do the laundry so I tossed the whites in with the detergent and bleach and let the washer do its thing.  I get back to the washer after it is done and start scooping out the clothes but something doesn't seem right.  I see flecks of something falling off the clothes as I scoop them out of the washer.

Paper?  Someone had a piece of paper in their pocket a few washes ago, but I thought I got all that out but paper tended to stick to the clothes.  With every scoop of clothing, some things fall off but I can't see what it is.  Got to be paper.

Doesn't seem like paper.  Keep grabbing clothes.  Feels funny.

Finally a heavy chunk of clothes.  Definitely not right.  Look at it ... a diaper.  Those little things falling all over are those water soaking beads they put in the diaper. 

It's going to be a while before I get them all out.  They do not like to be picked up.

I got a call that my younger son was sick at school and had trouble breathing so I left work to pick him up.  When I got to the nurse's office, I was told he was sent back to class but since I was there, I'll take him home.  When they called him to come to the office, he came skipping to the nurse's office.  He sure didn't seem particularly sick to me.  I had to also fill out the book the school has when students leave early.  The reason for taking him out of school, I put "sick" in quotes.

On the way home we had a discussion of what his problem was.  He proceeds to tell me that it was his heart and that he had trouble breathing.  And he also told me that he had a similar problem playing on the xbox the other day when he "rage quit".  O.o

My son has had this fascination with Yu-gi-oh cards for a while now and has been willing to part with whatever money he gets on these cards. So much so that I wonder why counterfeiters don't spend their time printing these up instead of printing money since they're as good as printing money without getting the secret service after you.

He was recently banned from spending any money on the cards, part of a twelve step program that he has been unwilling to participate in. Fortunately, without easy access to cash, it's rather difficult to purchase these cards to support the habit. Unfortunately, it turns out he learned to pilfer the cards from the store without getting caught ... by the store.

So one day it was discovered that he apparently was acquiring these cards without paying for them. When I picked him up from his school camp, I hauled his ass over to the store to have a talk with security. "I don't want to go to ju-vie", he was crying. Ju-vie being the Juvenile delinquent jail that kids apparently talk about in school. The security team was pretty good at giving him a scare. I think the public embarrassment was a good thing.

Of course, he was crying the whole day about how his mom was going to kill him. She didn't kill him, since he's still alive. However, he got to watch most of his Christmas presents get sent back to Amazon. He was very unhappy about that. It will be a sparse Christmas for him. His birthday present from me was to pay for the stolen cards. His punishment for shoplifting the cards was to have all the cards taken away. He cried all day off and on. Every time he discovered something else had been confiscated (PSP, his cards, Nintendo DS, presents under the tree), he broke down again.

He called me several times about how miserable he was. I had to tell him it gets better if he can get over it and move on. It has gotten better and hopefully he'll learn his lesson. He may be able to watch TV and play on the computer again by the summer.

My son did not get such good grades this last marking period. I mean, there was a C! In science! And B's!

Anyway, I attended this long orientation for his middle school and they talked about all sorts of things to get the parents energized for something that begins ... eight months from now. I don't recall orientation when I was a kid. I digress.

They get to the part about how they reward the straight "A" students with a dinner to celebrate their achievements. "Not pizza." They said, "Real food." I turned to my son and looked him in the eye and said, "I like free food" and raised my eyebrows a few times so he'd get the point.

The Building museum in DC had a lego exhibit showcasing some of the world's tallest buildings in legos. I thought it would be interesting for the kids to see what can be done with legos if you really put your mind to it. The building museum doesn't have much to see, they only seem to have an exhibit, a store, and an eating area. It is also one of the few museums that charge - $5 per person.

I paid the $5 per person and we wandered up to the exhibit room. The kids spend about 5 seconds staring at each building and then wandered over to the piles of lego bricks for kids to build stuff. And so my kids started building... for two hours. Since there wasn't much left to do in the museum, we left.

I realized I paid $15 for my kids to play with someone else's legos.

I stopped by the bank to deposit a check and my son saw the pens with the black cords attached to the back of them. He looks as me as I'm filling out the form and points to the cord, "Dad, is this where the ink goes into the pen?"

"No, the bank doesn't want people to steal their pens."

"Oh." He thinks for a second and asks, "What if they bring a pair of scissors?"

I stop writing for a second and see an older lady who puts her head down to snicker. "Then they probably want the pen more than the bank."

An answer he's satisfied with.

When my kids stay overnight, they take long showers. You would think smaller bodies mean less dirt to clean off. I think I found out why their showers are so long. I walked into the bathroom and peeked behind the curtain to find my younger son pouring out a handful of soap onto his hand and letting it overflow and drip onto the floor of the tub and down the drain. He would then take the very large handful of soap and rub it all over his chest. When I asked what he was doing, he said that he's trying to "smell good."