Shoeless Damon Sebastian

This is the child,

the adorable child,

who makes me laugh every day.

This is the child,

determined child,

who does things his very own way.

This is the child,

the demented child,

who gets in the car without shoes.

This is the child, 

infuriating child,

who forgets to deliver the news.

This is the child,

good-thing-he's-cute-child,

who makes shopkeepers laugh in delight

Cuz it wasn't their kid

needin' a new pair of skids.

We found five dollar ones- outta sight!

This is the child,

sometimes wild-sometimes nice,

whose Mama is learning to double check twice.

This is the child,

with sweet, precious face,

who reminds his Mama to do life with grace.

***

For those of you not into poetry, the above story is true. It happened last night, in fact. Everyone was scurrying around, trying to get ready for back to back karate classes. The big kids go first and then Damon's class is second. He had his water bottle in one hand and his belt in the other and I told him to get his clogs on and get in the car. 

Apparently he only heard, "get in the car."

We're halfway to karate, which means we are physically out of town, before he realizes and mentions that he is shoeless, but does in fact have his socks on.

There really is no convenient place to pull over to bury a body, so I kept driving and dumped the big kids out of the car for their class, parked, piggybacked him into the nearest secondhand store, and presto. Third try's a charm, so he ended up with new shoes because 1) they fit and 2) they were only $5 and 3) he'd outgrown his old ones anyway. 

Naturally he thinks he got them because 1) they're Spiderman and 2) they light up and 3) they're velcro instead of laces.

I call it a win.

And once we were all back home, a pair of flip flops went into the pocket of the car door beside his car seat.

I call that a win- win!

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

How did it get to be July already? This year is flying by. We've been out of school for a month now, and the house looks like there are three kids living here. Oh wait...

Yesterday we had a day. I could have sworn it was Monday. We had karate at 10, which means getting Carrie out of bed at 9 (we need to leave at 9:30ish) since she's turned into a teenager this summer. She staggers downstairs, dumps Cheerios into and out of her bowl so that they're all over the counter, didn't hear/ignored the caution that, "it's raining today, so wear your flip flops instead of your good sandals", and makes it into the car...

We make it to karate. Damon puts his flip flops in the locker room, they have class, he goes to find his shoes and- lo and behold- he can only find one flip flop. I know that he wore both of them in there, so I send him back to hunt for it. He comes out again wearing just one. I send him back again, and this time one of the instructors goes along to help him find it. Apparently, it has been tossed over the storage closet. Interesting. And the poor instructor relays the following message: I can get it for you, but it is going to take awhile. It's pretty crowded back there. I said, "we'll be back Thursday. Thank you."

So we leave with the One-Footed Wonder.

Good thing there's a Once Upon A Child right across the street. We found a new-to-us pair of sturdy sandals that strap over the top of his foot and around his ankle, and he loves them.

Proceed to the library. And lunch at Bob Evans with Dada. Then to Kroger. Then to Aldi. Then finally home.

Last night Dada was singing R.E.M.'s "It's the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine)", which you could youtube if you are unfamiliar with the tune, when Damon retorted with much indignation, "you don't know that!" Even though the kids don't know the song, it cracked all of us up. I didn't even know he had been paying attention to what was going on, but he sure mustered up his disgust about the possibility of the end of the world. Yes, it's on the new quote board.

I realize that's all just Carrie and Damon. Let's just say that Thing Two has been out of sorts recently, but it hasn't been his fault as there's been no structure or routine this summer and that's on me. Throw in a holiday weekend to lose any remaining sense I had of "what day is it, anyway?" and a deck that desperately needed stained before the rains began again and the overdue library books because, again, "what day is it, anyway?" ... you get the picture. It ain't pretty.

But hey, it's summer! We're staying up too late and sleeping in (well, Carrie is, anyway. Little Miss slept until noon on Monday) and goofing off. We're reading books, swatting mosquitoes, chasing frogs, rescuing toads*, scratching mosquito bites, running the dishwasher every single day since almost all of us are eating 3 meals here daily, moving from one mess to another to another, getting band aids on our bloody mosquito bites, doing karate, watching movies, finishing The Return of the King, using our pool pass, and arguing with each other while we reopen scabs from mosquito bites.

It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine. Except for the mosquito bites.

Is it just me, or are they terrible this summer!?

*We've named the toad "Abre" because it means "open" in Spanish. We've found him sitting in the kennel, sitting in front of the inside of the garage door, hiding behind the recycling bin, and sliding across the newly stained deck because the water now puddles on top the way it's supposed to. He always looks like, "someone please let me out. Please? Abre! I don't have opposable thumbs!"

Damon vs. the rope swing, part 1

 

The Christmas elves left us a rope swing that you often find Carrie shimmying up. Damon took a crack at it on Saturday and I lost track of how many times he lost his flip flops...

 

 

Being a boy, he doesn't mind getting dragged across the dirt. He just pops back up, laughing, and launches after the rope again. Pretty entertaining!