rough housing and tickle fights end in one of two ways in our house; when someone gets hurt or someone pukes (from laughing too hard).

this is no lie and i'm not embellishing for effect. last thursday marty went to a girl scout meeting leaving me to put the kids to bed. after baths and before i started reading to the boys a huge tickle fight broke out on my bed. it was me against bella and alex and anthony. about five minutes into the affair, i was tickling bella and she started coughing. i stopped. she turned her head and vomited a dark swill onto the comforter and floor. you'd think she would spin on me in anger or disgust at this turn but instead her face brightened and she said, "hey, i just threw up! does that mean i don't have to go to school tomorrow?" i had the parental duty of telling her that throwing up only gets you out of school if you can wretch without anyone touching, tickling, or gagging you. i was dismayed, but not surprised, to see the wheels in her head processing this new piece of knowledge. i'm sure if it's possible to will yourself to vomit, bella is about to become one of its most ardent practitioners.

a good friend of mine teaches high school math. but he's not that math teacher. he's the math teacher who for class takes his kids out out to the track field and asks who in the class thinks they can run faster than him. he says this in a tone that reveals he doesn't think any of these young, lithe, athletic bodies can outrun his older, balding frame in a hundred yard dash. hands start ener...

marty makes lunch for the kids each morning. she does this while they are eating breakfast. how it works is after they wake up and dress they come to the kitchen and pick their breakfast. once they start eating they are handed the "the sheet". from this sheet they are to pick three items they would like in their lunchbox. they call them out and marty acknowledges the request and busies herself in preparing it. this list deal has been around for years but had to be re-done this year now that alex is going to school with bella. i was drawn to the little pictograms marty made next to each of alex's lunch items. there's far more artistry in there than one would expect for such a artifact. startlingly impressive.

i'll scan it again at the end of the school year so you can see how tattered (e.g. loved) one of these gets from being part of a three-child breakfast bar routine every school day morning.

click for larger version

in case you wondering where bella has been this week, she's around. she's our veteran student and going into the third grade. i figured that with her it was all business as usual. and then i found an old picture someone gave us of bella when she started kindergarten. i was shocked at how different she looked. at the time of that photo alex was three and anthony had just been born. she is almost unrecognizable to her current day self. so much for business as usual.

bella in her kindergarten days

and bella a deceptive three years later.

aleo and i moments before walking up to his first day of school

anfer getting some individual attention while his siblings are at school (and he isn't)

today i have one boy turning three (anfer) and another starting kindergarten (aleo).

anfer (aka anthony) has been best described as, "just like bella, but male" which if you know bella at all you know just what a terrifying sentiment this is. a three-year old anfer is one year smarter, stronger and more bull-headed than the two-year old variety. wish marty and i strength and patience. and wish anfer continued cuteness for when marty and i run out of strength and patience.

and last night i watched alex fall asleep. while his body relented to the day and his fingers and arms began twitching in surrender, i studied his peaceful countenance and thought how the next day would mark the beginning of a new and long chapter of his life. i fear aleo will dislike many parts of this leg of youth (education) but i'm confident that through the journey he will discover what part of our world speaks to him. at least, i desperately hope he does because should he not find that facet of this universe which interests him more than all others, he may spend more time wandering dimly lit hallways than enjoying what he is meant to do in this world. godspeed my aleo.

it's that time again. that time when i take a break from you and you take a break from me.

as is customary, i'm loading you up as i run out the door.
sassafras tea
what i'm reading
what i'm eating
june gallery

and, a monorail entry because how could i leave you without sharing a bella-creation. today is bella's last day of school. this year, bella's teacher was very into reading and writing so she and bella got on just famously. below is the thank you card bella made this very special teacher. and this afternoon when school is really done and this card has been delivered and school is shuttered for the summer, bella and i are off for our special end of school day where i take the kids out. alex who wrapped up a few weeks ago went go-karting. bella thinks she is going horseback riding (again) but instead we are going out for a big steak lunch followed by a day of roller coastering.

additionally, the below card is the first time bella every capitalized the A in her last name. for people without a middle cap in their name, this may seem trivial. for those that carry the burden in life, it is not.

this year it seems extra-fitting that i'm beginning my month sabbatical on the same day summer starts, for everyone in my home at least. it's got me feeling a bit childlike and giddy myself.

i'll be back with you on monday, july 6th.


click to enlarge

it seems nick-naming everyone may have a genetic component in that bella has taken to applying monikers to her own world. most notably last week a group of kids at school she calls the hannah montana girls. and for added bite, not all of them are girls.

recently bella made a comment about going to another school. when marty asked why she wanted to change bella said it was to get away from the hannah montana girls. marty paused from what she was doing, turned to bella and explained that there was no getting away from the hannah montana girls because every school had them. they are everywhere. by the dour look on bella's face you would have thought marty just told her there was no santa, cuddly puppies, or music-playing ice cream trucks. she was struck completely dumb.

and as i think i've noted before, bella calls grown up hannah montana girls, decorated ladies. and like their younger counterparts, there's no getting away from them either.

ALEX
is today a school day?

TROY
yes it is.

ALEX
ah dammit.

from his tone and the easy way it rolled from his five year old mouth, you'd think he had to take an obnoxious client to lunch or deliver bad news to a subordinate on this day.

and these are still coming from marty's camp. when i become the source of their swears i'm confident calls home from school with threats of detention will be part of the discussion.

a friend of mine who teaches second grade in colorado sent out an email a few weeks back sharing some results of a test she gives her incoming kids. this particular test evaluates the students giving insight to what kind of year she has ahead of her. i thought about giving the test to bella but the other night at the dinner table she used the word 'tavern' in a story after which i asked her if she just used the word 'tavern' to which she said yes. i then asked her if she knew what a tavern was and she exasperatedly said that of course she knew what a 'tavern' was ... father. i'm not looking for any more reasons to document how bella is going to be far smarter than me before she's driving a car, so no unnecessary testing for her.

this question/answer bit also reminded me of how much i adored (and now miss) the old candid camera interviews allen funt used to do with elementary kids. truly wonderful.

note: (my friend's comments are in the parens)

Question: Don't cry over____________________.
Hoping for: "spilled milk"
Instead, some of the responses:

• who gets to go first
• the rodeo
• "hoo took the last cookee" (the spelling made it funnier to me)

Question: Keep your____________________.
Hoping for: "fingers crossed"
Instead, some of the responses:

• hands to yourself (most common)
• shirt tucked in
• hair neat
• backpack zipped

Question: Two heads____________________.
Hoping for: "are better than one"
Instead, some of the responses:

• over one head
• make two
• bumping
• are funny
• looks weird
• is a double
• better seeing

Question: Eaten out of____________________.
Hoping for: "house and home"
Instead, some of the responses:

• eggs
• the wrong plate
• a bowl
• a bag

Question: Better late than____________________.
Hoping for: "never"
Instead, some of the responses:

• ham (???)
• than early
• than sorry
• for the train
• "I always say"
• nothing

Question: You can't teach____________________.
Hoping for: "an old dog new tricks"
Instead, some of the responses:

• a chicken
• someone how to eat
• a teacher when they're teaching you (deep)
• fish
• a wild bull
• yourself
• "divizzinn" (division)

Question: Where there's a will____________________.
Hoping for: "there's a way"
Instead, some of the responses:

• there's a will not (my favorite)
• there's a pill (hmmm?)
• there's hope
• there is happiness
• there's a try

Question: Don't judge____________________.
Hoping for: "a book by its cover"
Instead, some of the responses:

• fair people
• talent
• a judge

Question: Easier____________________.
Hoping for: "said than done"
Instead, some of the responses:

• than pie
• is good
• than harder
• than going to bed
• to play
• the better
• is easier than hard

Question: Turn over____________________.
Hoping for: "a new leaf"
Instead, some of the responses:

• and roll
• and wake up
• the pancake
• papers
• on your side
• and turn around
• your life

when i stepped out of the shower i heard marty and the kids leaving for school. in the mornings i either take bella and alex to school myself or give hugs and kisses to them as they leave for the day. today i was wet and in a towel when i heard the front door slam. i ran to an upstairs window, opened it and shouted goodbye as they walked towards the car. alex returned the sentiment and bella turned paused and then shouted, loudly, "will you please shut the window! i can see your big, fat nipples!"

i can say with the full confidence that my nipples are neither big or fat. i just don't know how to say it with confidence to the neighbors who surely heard bella bark the information through the quiet morning street.

at a work christmas party tonight, a co-worker told me about a call she received from her ten year-old's school saying she needed to come in to discuss an in-school suspension for her son. it turns out he and a neighbor boy, using the internet and the family's color printer made baseball-cards of naked women and got caught showing them to other boys in the school. she described how mortified she was and the subsequent speech she delivered about the degradation and objectification of women. she also said when she asked her older brother about it, the first thing he wondered was what an 83 topps card of pam anderson was going for these days. sadly, women will never comprehend how depraved the male mind really is.

in planning for our last class of the semester, i told my co-teacher, a very seasoned pro, that i wanted to take a group photo of the class. he looked at me a little sideways and said, kindly, "that's cute". in virtually all matters of planning and decision-making i deferred to this mentor but this was one i had to have. as the final minutes of the class approached i gained the room's attention and said:


so that may not be exactly how it came out but it is what i was shooting for. truthfully, i found myself slightly emotional looking at the collection of young and bright faces before me. this collection which would never come together again as they have. this sentimentality surely stems from the only child in me, that plus an extra heavy dash of androgyny which makes for good and routine awkwardness. as requested we did shoot a picture and good to the end, they were champs, exquisitely smiling and hamming for the camera.

after the last student left and the door closed one more time for that particular fall07 course i walked home in the rain thinking about how and why i needed that photograph. by the time i reached my door i didn't have an exact answer, but did know this image, freshly made, would warm me for years to come.

a new TROYSCRIPT was posted today. sugar-coated

this is my third wednesday of eating lunch up at bella's school. now feeling chummy with the crew, i asked if anyone knew what they would be dressing up for on halloween. this question was met with a resounding yes followed by an inventory of characters. i then asked if they knew what joke they would be telling while trick or treating (a definitively saint louis thing). this culminated in a barrage of impromptu knock-knock jokes most of which punch-lined with the word 'dumb-head' or 'poop-head' and as best i could tell i was always the one in the simple/fecal-headed seat. the melee climaxed with this final knock-knock joke which i was actually pretty excited about in the early stages.

VICTOR
knock-knock

TROY
who's there?

VICTOR
for real, you've got spaghetti on your pants.

TROY
for real, you've got spaghetti on your pants who?

VICTOR
no. you really do have spaghetti on your pants. look. (he points under table where i see a smallish pile of meaty pasta resting on my knee)

TROY
oh, dang. i thought that was your knock, knock joke.

VICTOR
i said 'for real'.

TROY
yes you did victor. you did say 'for real'. sorry i didn't pick up on that.

if these youngsters don't get a little more precise in their consumption of food, these wednesday lunches may be short-lived.

bella's single complaint about kindergarten, to date, is that it is too long. when marty consoled her by saying it would get easier and she would get used to it, she replied ... "but it's just too hard to go all day without loving you or father." those are called 'mad skills'.

days later, a teacher told me that parents are welcome to come and eat lunch with their children. curious about h...

we had a child born two weeks ago. we had another child begin full day kindergarten one week ago. and gluttons that we are, we're making yet another child enter half-day preschool this week. with so many balls in the air we didn't really get a chance to counsel alex proper on what to expect at his first school experience. what to ask. what not to do. where the bathroom is. you know the basics. fortunately for us, we have bella and it is apparent from the below 5-second time lapse photo that she has privately schooled him on the powers of manipulation, or as she would contend, the powers of survival, happiness and household dominance.

i just can't figure out if the photo on the left is his mean-mug or his just got mean-mugged face. knowing bella as i do though, i'd say that is the face of someone committed to keeping the thomas-train table all to himself.