one little boy, one little man

My youngest son is my shadow. When we are joined again following a day apart, I am honestly struck by how much I've missed him. When I ask if he missed me, he'll say no, but the way he edges closer to my side and smirks gives him away. We'd be fantastic partners in crime if we weren't such horrible liars.

Instead, we are dance partners. Dinner has been late more than once because we've decided it necessary to break down some sweet moves to Mr. Roboto while the sauce boils over. The kid loves the classics, which explains why Baby Got Back is currently his favorite song to sing, although his fascination with Beyonce's Single Ladies remains steadfast, his love of Lady Gaga's Poker Face is growing, and The Black Eyed Peas' I Got A Feeling is a constant hum coming from his bedroom each night.

I'd willingly slay dragons for this boy. I'd also happily sit with him for hours and spin stories of a dragon that shoots glitter rather than flames from his beastly nostrils, or listen to one of the myriad of tales he's nearly bursting to share with me by day's end. "And then..." he'll tease, forcing me to the edge of my seat. "...he puked and it had so many brown chunks in it, every kid in the lunchroom could tell what he'd had for breakfast that day!" Not every story can have a happy ending!

My son arrived in this world very, very quietly in front of a very, very large audience looking so exactly like his older brother when he was born that I actually demanded a different baby. Of course, I'm glad the team of medical professionals tending to him ignored me because I'd have missed out on the magic this child has brought to our house. His audience was large on the day he was born, and it's only grown since. So has his once quiet voice. Today, my youngest bursts into rooms and commands the floor. He's a song and dance man, a puller of funny faces, an impeccable mimic and a willing practitioner of my personal favorite habit - adopting an English accent at random times. I've little doubt he's going to be the best (and perhaps right quite proper) firefly in his second grade class musical production of Bugs! next week. I've also little doubt he's going to tire of me singing that Fireflies song every time we practice his lines.

To quote from that song, I'd like to make myself believe that planet Earth turns slowly, but that's impossible to believe. If it were so, my son wouldn't suddenly be 8 years old. Thank you for the stories, the scenes, the songs and the dance steps. Thank you for starting each day with smooches and ending them with cries of "I said good day, sir!" Thank you for tagging along with me.

Happy birthday, sweet shadow boy.

do you love me (like I love pizza)?

Hey, Internet! I've got a question for you. It's inside that intricately folded up mass of notebook paper I just shoved gently into your palm. It does look like a swan, doesn't it? I'm glad you noticed, Internet. That makes me feel good.

Did you also notice I've not been around for awhile? That's kind of the reason why I wrote you that note, so I'm hoping you'll read it and give it some thought. What's that? You don't want to read? I don't understand that, Internet. You're the Internet! The very point of your existence is for others to read, isn't it? Oh, and to surf for porn, you say? I wouldn't know about that, Internet. Now you're just scaring me.

Ah, and also because you don't have hands to open it! Silly me, Internet! Sorry! Didn't mean to be insensitive...though I bet not having hands really cuts down on the point of that porn surfing, eh? It's OK, I won't tell.

OK, since you don't want to read my note, I'll read it for you and you can answer directly with any or all choices that apply. Ready?

Dear Internet,

Hello! How are you? I am fine. I'm writing this to you because whenever I'm around you, I feel something weird in my tummy. Maybe it's using the word 'tummy,' I don't know. It's not a word I say much. Anyway, I wanted to ask you if you missed me, Internet. Do you? To make your answer easier, I'm providing you with multiple choices in hopes you'll get back to me soon.

Do you miss me? Please check any that apply:

• Yes
• No
• A little bit.
• Who are you again?
• What's in it for me if I say yes?
• Seriously, who are you again?
• Very much so. In fact, in light of your absence, I constructed a scale model robot of you from schematics I drew up using only your profile photo and my vivid imagination. I call my robot RADKOG. Because it is rad! And also because it is made of cogs. Get it? RADKOG!
  
• I started out making a robot that would reflect how sad I've been about you disappearing from your blog for no reason these past couple of weeks and planned to call it SADKOG, but then I was like, "Well, that's kind of a dumb idea because if it's sad, that means it will cry and crying will just make a robot rust, so what in the world am I thinking?"
• I can too build a robot that's capable of crying!
  
• Yes, I absolutely have amazing robot building skills.
• Go away. You're scaring me.
  
• No

Thank you for your honesty, Internet. I'll eagerly await your response.

My love always (even though I want you to know that my saying that shouldn't in any way make you feel uncomfortable)(no pressure)(seriously)(I do love you, though...).

Me

********************

I honestly have no explanation for why I've been AWOL here for a couple weeks. Heck, I'm not even sure you care why I haven't been writing. Maybe you just assumed the Bigfoot finally got me, as will one day surely be the cause of my demise.

That or maybe that weird robot you built, which, btw, great job on getting my hair right!

Anyway, we haven't been doing much around here lately, so that's probably why I've not been writing. Today we're trapped inside the house together and riding out a minor ice storm. If you caught the use of the word 'we're' then you know that means my kids have YET ANOTHER DAY OFF FROM SCHOOL. I think I can count on one hand how many days they've attended since returning from holiday break on January 3rd. Also, my Tool Man decided it wasn't worth braving the conditions to pimp drills and other tool-like items of which I am clueless, so he's here, too. Hooray! Every one of them is pacing this place like vampires and I am the sole blood-bloated human taunting them with my throbbing veins and beating heart and they...well, they are making me crazy. I love them, I love them, I love them, but Mother Nature has been holding us hostage far too long already this season and I'm close to playing the theme song to Barney in hopes it will drive her or them out soon.

So there's that.

It might be a great idea for Tool Man to bust out soon. On Monday, the two of us kicked off a fantastic healthy eating program to replace the one we've been on awhile called "I don't know what to have for supper so do you want to just call Papa Murphy's and get a pizza?" This morning, just two days into our stellar program, he sat down next to me on the couch and asked if the time of day impacts weigh-ins. After I informed him that I choose to weigh myself in the morning (and only once a week because, hi, if I wanted more guilt and self-loathing, I'd just call my mom), he said, "Hmm...that's interesting. Well, I weighed myself this morning after breakfast and I just am amazed by how much I've lost so far."

And then I killed him and thus, I have no idea how much he lost.

Oh, no I didn't. You know I didn't! Instead, I (tried not to roll my eyes and) asked him what he lost and he happily informed me that he's lost six pounds so far.

SIX POUNDS!

IN TWO DAYS!!

This after consuming a medium Dairy Queen pecan cluster Blizzard on Monday (aka - the first day of our new healthy lifestyle) to top off the double cheeseburger he'd eaten prior. The tasty ice cream treat alone, friends, is a prize package valued at 1,050 calories!

(also, shush. We don't eat out that often and Monday nights are 'kids eat free' nights at Dairy Queen, so when we do, we like the economic perk, alright?)

I should also add that while I've been tracking calories and points, working out like a mofo and drinking so much water that I've had to get up and use the bathroom eight times while trying to write this post (it's only been two days, so I'm still super excited about all this), he's describing his activity level as "low" ("I'm just going to count walking as my exercise," he told me. Around Home Depot stores. Or from his work truck into Home Depot stores. While I'm Turbo Jamming my ass around the living room, thank you very much), and surfing the Internet for something called the 'fat burning furnace, ' (but I made him stop because I'm hot enough already, thanks)(oh, hilarious!). And that, friends, is apparently how you lose six pounds in two days.

I could, of course, lose around 190 pounds in five minutes by shoving him out the door, but, again, the roads are icy, so where's he going to go, hmm?

Anyway, long story short, I really have no excuse for not writing for so long other than perhaps crankiness induced by the drastic reduction in Diet Mountain Dew my body is presently working through. How I miss that nectar of the gods. However, I do hope you've missed me because I've missed you. You know it's true.

And if you've actually built a robot model of me, I might want to talk to you about building one of my husband because if he keeps up with his plan, he's going to waste away to nothing by next Wednesday and I'm really going to miss him when he's gone.

we goin' ridin' on the freeway of love

Before I get started on this post, let me apologize for once again writing about video games, which, if we travel way back in my time machine (Mmmm...smell that? That's that new time machine scent!) to late December 2009, we'll see they were also the subject of the last post I wrote. In that post I shared that, thanks to Nintendo's semi-hostile takeover of my home, it has been nothing but non-stop gaming here for almost two weeks. My sons each now have their own DS systems, and we also now have a Wii, which my Tool Man has become quite enamoured with. If I wish to find any of them at any given time, I need only follow the sound of bleeps and bloops blasting through the place.

(sidebar - As I try to write this, my 7 year old is sprawled on the couch next to me playing Super Mario Brothers on his DS, my 12 year old is on the love seat busting the chops of someone on Smackdown VS Raw 2009 on his, and between the noise, them talking to the screens, and the voices in my head asking me when the kids' bedtime is because they want to snag one of those systems and play Cooking Mama, I seriously can not think.)

Tool Man seems to be most in love with MarioKart, and has spent countless hours improving his methods and puffing up his chest each time he dominates a race. "Oh, that was a pretty hard one," he'll say (and that's what she said, too) after conquering a course, and as he's blinking his beady little bloodshot eyes to regain the moisture lost from staring nonstop at the TV screen for so long, I'll glance up and notice he's come in first in every race he's played, and I'll sneer "Oh, yeah, Ricky Bobby, that was REAL hard."

(and then I'll say "That's what she said!" again, because, oh, that NEVER gets old!)

On New Year's Day, my king of the road, apparently forgetting the way my poor muscle coordination (which I could perhaps improve if I ever got a moment on that damn system to work out with my Wii Fit) makes me all flippy floppy with the game remote, asked me if I wanted to join him on a game of MarioKart. I was intrigued and excited by the possibility the request was his way of letting me know one of his resolutions for the new year was to spend less time making whoopWii and more time racking up the high score loving points with me, so I immediately dropped what I was doing and grabbed his remote.

His ACTUAL remote.

Because I didn't make any resolutions about more loving quality time, because I'm good on that one, thank you very much.

Even though I may have yelled something about "IN YOUR FACE!!"

And he may have responded with "That's what she said!"

And then that just grossed me out.

But anyway...

Anyway.

I immediately dropped what I was doing to join him and listened intently as he gave me tips on the best vehicle to pick for the character I chose to play as (Miss Peach, in case you're curious), and where to look ahead on the course to better take out other opponents. After a few games, I really thought I was getting the hang of things and doing reasonably well, and because Tool Man and I were playing on the same team, my heart was racing with pride and devotion almost as fast as he raced his Mario around Rainbow Road and through Coconut Mall. When Tool Man is intent on something, he sticks the tip of his tongue out and folds it under his lip, and when I could spare a glance over, I noticed he was doing that and I found it so adorable that all I wanted to do was throw my remote aside and get to some shakin' and bakin'.

That feeling only intensified as we put the pedal to the metal and I realized he was yelling "Go, baby! Go, baby, go!!" over and over again during various course, and I was thrilled to think he was cheering FOR ME (and Miss Peach) as I attempted to improve my pole position in Waluigi Stadium, which only made me try harder to take out that annoying Donkey Kong every time he attempted to edge me out. For three or four races, Tool Man's cheers of "Go, baby! Go, baby, GO!" continued, and his awesome sportsmanship was really turning me on.

However, on the fifth race, as we skidding along the frozen terrain of Sherbert Land, and I was preparing to thank Tool Man for all the support and encouragement he was giving me (and Miss Peach), I stole a glance toward his screen as his tongue was darting all over the place and he was screaming positive affirmations, and noticed he was - and had been - cheering "Go, baby! Go, baby, go!!" TO HIS OWN CHARACTER!!!

Not to me (and Miss Peach)!!

When I realized that, I waved a black penalty flag to send Tool Man back to the pits, and God bless him and his attempts to get a green flag back onto my course, there was no victory lap for him that night.

*************************

In between sneaking on the Wii to practice my MarioKart skills so I can get all up in Tool Man's face and make him say "I love crepes," I've also been doing some thinking and I wrote about my thoughts for Polite Fictions 2.0. This time, instead of an ongoing narrative, we're each putting our own self-contained spin on one theme, and we're starting big with The Afterlife. If you're so inclined, please go read my contribution and give me some feedback there. Also, kick your shoes off and stay awhile so you can read some beautiful words written by the others who haven't yet kicked me out of their far superior home. I appreciate, and I know they do, too.