He Says He's a Cat

Day 2 of school and I get a call from the elementary school principal.  It's about Miles.  Last spring, Miles said he had a stomach ache every day.  Overnight he decided he no longer wanted to attend school.  After missing a couple of days because he was "sick", I found out what the real problem was.  Miles is terrified of fire drills.  The thought of a fire drill caused his anxiety to skyrocket which, in turn, caused his stomach to ache.  I went and talked to his teacher about the issue.  I talked with the principal too.  We decided that the best course of action was to have the principal call me whenever a fire drill was scheduled.  Fortunately, last year, there were no more scheduled fire drills.

Fast forward to Back to School Night.  The fire drill fears resurfaced.  We went and found the principal, and Miles reminded Mr. Stubbs that fire drills are evil.  Mr. Stubbs reminded Miles that the purposed of the fire drill was to practice what would happen in the even of a real fire.  He told me that he'd be in touch when a fire drill was scheduled.  That call came today.

Tomorrow at 9:30 a.m., Miles gets to face his nemesis... the fire drill.  In preparation, I told Miles that there will be a fire drill tomorrow.  That didn't go over so well.  He immediately ran to his room and hid under the covers.  He then proceeded to tell me that he is a cat, and that cats sleep for 20 hours a day, so he can't go to school because he'll be asleep.  Nice try.

We're talking him through the upcoming event.  Dan brought him a pair of earplugs to use during the drill.  Coincidentally, Schlumberger had a fire drill today, so Dan has been taking him step by step through what happened at his work.  We'll see how it goes.

Oh, and now he just told me that he's going to sleep for 48 hours.

Cub Scout Field Day

Miles is a Tiger Cub Scout.  While the BSA is not my thing, Miles found out that he could be a Tiger Cub, and I decided that it would be good for Miles and I to have a "togetherness" activity.    Today was field day.  Miles loved everything about it... slingshots, making a pan flute, watching science experiments, and having a great time with the other boys.

Tree Root

Sometimes you have a neighbor who planted Aspen trees just on their side of the property line.  And sometimes those trees grow really tall.  All the time Aspen trees have roots that do not acknowledge property lines.  Sometimes those roots grow over into my yard and send runners and shoots up into my grass.  Sometimes, when stepped upon, those shoots become hard and quite painful to the bottom of my foot. And sometimes the number of runners and shoots becomes bothersome and they attempt to take over my back lawn.  I may have tried to control the problem by meticulously painting Roundup onto the shoot's leaves last summer.  That proved to be a temporary solution that took hours and hours of my time in the summer heat to accomplish.  The mother tree was not affected by the Roundup.  The shoots have returned.  I may have finally decided that something must be done, and started digging the roots out of my lawn.  Look at the size of the root Nolan and I removed from the lawn.  It was maybe 3 inches down.  Unreal.  It was as big around as my forearm and we dug about 20 feet of it.

The war will continue throughout the summer.  As new shoots emerge exposing the root path, my shovel and I will battle on.

Miles and Jonathan

It's no secret that these two have merrily tolerated each other for the past 7 years.  I think things are changing.  First, the two have had some pretty deep conversations recently.  For example, I overheard the following:

Miles: What did you learn in school today?
Jonathan:  I learned the Fourear transform.
Miles: What did you make at school today?
Jonathan:  I made medicine.
Miles:  What color was your medicine?
Jonathan:  It was clear.
Miles:  On, the regular kind?
Jonathan:  I guess.

Okay, I thought that was about the most charming conversation, and I loved that Jonathan was willing to stoop to a 7-year-old's level and answer (mostly) appropriately.

I also have been able to capture the following pictures where the two chose to spend time together...

The Bathroom

So currently, bathroom usage is a hot topic in the US.  The government stated that the proper restroom to use is dependent upon the user's gender identification.  There's outrage over perverts using restrooms as stalking grounds.  There's the state of current events in the United States.

Yesterday I was at the Salt Lake International Airport.  I needed to use the restroom, and based on my personal gender identification, I choose to use the restroom labeled "Women".  I was washing up, and in the mirror I saw the reflection of a youngish adult.  I would identify this person as "male."  The guy looked in the mirror and saw me and was instantly horrified.  He stammered out, "Did I just walk into the women's restroom?"  I turned around, smiled, and said, "The US government says you should use which ever restroom you identify your gender with."  The poor kid/adult/guy was so embarrassed!  He whipped around and sprinted out of the ladies room.  I probably shouldn't have been so cheeky with him.

Out of the Mouth of Babes

Miles is having intestinal issues.  He says he feels fine, and is happily eating a bowl full of ketchup, along with a couple of still-frozen fish sticks, but his intestinal tract shows otherwise.  After his fourth or fifth trip to the toilet, Miles exclaimed, "Oh, my bum is on fire!".  Yep.

Ski Day

Yesterday I stood on the ski slopes at Brighton in jeans and a sweatshirt.  It was a balmy 46 degrees in the mountains.  I took Jonathan and Miles up to ski.  Jonathan had a great half day skiing whatever runs he wanted to... since he was skiing solo, he didn't have to take turns choosing runs/lifts, etc.  I put Miles in ski school.  He loved every minute of it.  He thought the chair lift was awesome.

He started the day with ski clips/buckles...

but by the end of his lesson, he officially graduated to "clipless".

Miles loves to go fast; he brakes at the last minute (usually not until he's tailgated the kid in front of him and Miles' skis are inside the other kid's wedge).  At the end of his lesson, I asked Miles if he was done skiing and wanted to go in the lodge and play iPod, or if he wanted to ride the "magic carpet" and ski some more.  He was not done skiing.  So together we rode up the magic carpet, and down the mini-hill he skied while I ran down the hill (purse in hand) chasing him.  He had so much fun that he asked if he can go to "ski class" again on Monday.  Since there's no school tomorrow, that's a real possibility!