Kitty!

Every Saturday I get the privilege of teaching an introductory biology class in which, for the most part, the students are conscientious and hard working. Due to their conscientious nature there are a few lab groups that are a little slow. This morning, for example, 4 of the six groups finished their lab activity 20 minutes ago, one is just now completing the project, and one group is basically just starting the second part. This second part requires that they leave little vials of yeast in a water bath and take measurements of the carbon dioxide production every 5 minutes for 30 minutes. It is now 11:45 am, all of the other lab groups are gone now, and it will take this one group about 10 minutes to complete the setup, 30 minutes to do the procedure, and then another 10 - 15 minutes to clean up. For those of you who are unable to do the math in your head, this means that I hate them.

The one good thing about the time that this group is taking is that it gives me a chance to post another story.

Last night Jen wasn't feeling well so I took the boys out to Petsmart to pick up some things. We needed some fish food because, as it turns out, they die if you don't feed them. We also needed to pick up a sucker fish to clean the tank because, as it turns out, lots of fish in a small tank means lots of poop and lots of algae. This poop and algae eventually make a film on the glass which makes enjoyment of the fish more challenging.

Ryan, Ethan and I hopped into the van and cruised to the store, listening to Metallica along the way. I am becoming a little more sure of the fact that they shouldn't be listening to this stuff, and Ryan let me know that I might be overreacting when he said, after the music ended, "I'm not going to do what Metallica says cuz it is really hard to sleep with one eye open. Plus, I haven't found any beasts under my bed." Then he paused a second. "But I don't really know what a beast is, so I could be wrong."

By this time we were in the parking lot and I was able to change the subject from Metallica to fish, so I took that opportunity. "Ready guys?"

"Ready!" said Ryan, climbing out of his seat.

"Car!" said Ethan pointing at the car next to us.

And we were off to the joys of Petsmart. We walked in and headed to the doggie day care section by running (Ryan)/walking (me)/running, walking, pausing every few seconds to look at something on a shelf, and general impeding the progress of the rest of us (Ethan). There were no dogs to be seen, but this simply meant that we had more time to go look at the cats. We then proceeded to the cat section in much the same manner as we had to the doggie day care. When we finally got there, Ryan noticed that all of the cats were asleep.

"Dad and Ethan, be quiet," Ryan whispered. "They are all asleep."

"OK," I whispered

"Kitty!" Ethan yelled, pointing at the cats. "Kitty! Kitty!"

"Let's go somewhere else so we don't wake them up," suggested Ryan.

"Kitty!" said Ethan, still pointing, clearly not in agreement.

I picked Ethan up to speed our progress across the store to the fish section. This section sports an entire wall which contains at least 50 tanks with different types of fish in each. When we got there I put Ethan down and Ryan quickly started looking for the sucker fish tank. Ethan stared in seeming awe at the wall of tanks. He ran up to one tank, pointed at it, and said "Fish!" He then looked to his left and appeared to notice that tank for the first time and pointed at that one.

"Fish!" he said.

Then, he looked up, his little face filled with joy. "Fish! Fish! Fish!" he said as he quickly moved from one tank to the next.

"Man. He really likes fish," said Ryan. "I like fish too, but he might like them more than me. We should get him his own tank." He paused slightly, as if thinking this next part over. "And a puppy. Mom said we could get a puppy this summer."

"Really?" I asked. I happen to know that Jen is more likely to allow Ryan to get a flamethrower and use it to practice igniting cars in the church parking lot, but I let it slide for now because Ethan then let out what sounded like maniacal laughter and ran down the length of the wall pointing at all the fish. I jogged after him and eventually grabbed him and we found someone to help us with our suckerfish purchase. As we moved on to the checkout line he noticed a dog down the aisle. Of course, you would imagine with his love of all animals he would yell out "Dog!", but alas, he did not. I was a little disappointed when he instead pointed at the dog and yelled "Kitty!"

"No, Ethan, that is a dog, not a kitty," I said.

"Yeah, Ethan," said Ryan, ever the helpful one. "Kitties are small and say 'meow' and dogs are bigger and say 'bark'. That's a dog. Mom said we could get one."

"Kitty!" said Ethan.

"Nope, that's a dog," I said. "Doggie."

"Kitty!" he said again, this time pointing at the dog. One of the things I have learned over time with these boys is that, aside from the incident with the Clementine orange earlier in the month when Ethan couldn't be convinced that it was not a ball, they are typically not this adamant about things when they are wrong. So I looked around the store for the kitty he might be seeing. As it turns out, there was a kitty, but it was on a sign way above the floor and it happened to be exactly above the dog that he seemed to be pointing at.

I mentioned this to Ryan and we both acknowledged that Ethan was right all along.

"We really need to pay more attention to that kid," said Ryan. "You can't always understand what he says, but he sure knows his kitties."

As soon as Ryan said this, Ethan pointed through the window at a dog getting its hair trimmed. "CAR!" he shouted.

We'll have to work on that one.

Do we have to call DCFS now?

Yesterday, Jen and I got out of school a bit late and consequently we were a bit late to pick up the boys from Nonnie's house. Normally this isn't really a problem but yesterday I had a massive headache and wanted nothing more than to simply lie down on the couch, or any horizontal surface for that matter, and sleep for about 2 to 3 weeks. We got to the house and were basically assaulted by a wall of noise - Ethan was squeeling with delight that mom and dad had returned and Ryan was jumping out from behind the door in full superhero mode complete with his own theme music. He likes to hum the theme from The Incredibles as he sprints from one room to another.

After wading through this onslaught, I made it to the couch where I sat down and relaxed for a few minutes. Surprisingly, this helped the headache quite a bit and I was actually able to concentrate on what was going on in the room without wincing. What I noticed as I opened my eyes was that Ryan and Ethan had both attacked their uncle Justin. Ryan jumped onto his stomach while Ethan repeated head-butted him.

This is Ethan's new attack move. He learned it the other day when we were playing our newest game called, surprisingly, "The Incredibles," which involves listening to the Incredibles soundtrack while I pretend to be the Omnidroid and Ryan pretends to be Mr. Incredible. This game could just as easily be entitled "Jump on dad Until the Music is Over," but he likes to pretend and I'm happy to indulge him. Now that Ethan is big enough, he gets to play the part of Jack-Jack, the little baby from the movie. In the movie, Jack-Jack has all kinds of cool little powers but Ethan's version is somewhat less powerful. The game now involves Ryan jumping on me while pretending to be Mr. Incredible, and Ethan as Jack-Jack climbing onto my chest where he either laughs until he drools, or laughs until he farts.

The other day Ryan had me "pinned down" and I was pretending to struggle to escape. Ethan then ran up, seemingly out of nowhere, fell to his knees, and head-butted me right in the side of the head. Hard. He then sat back and laughed while I clutched the side of my head where his cranium had met mine. I figured that this was a one-off thing and was an accident, but then he did it again a few minutes later with very similar results. This was now not an accident but a carefully planned maneuver. And it was this carefully planned maneuver which he used against his Uncle yesterday.

Eventually Justin got up and called it quits, but Ryan wasn't ready to be done so he asked me to join in on the fun. Since I was feeling better I figured I'd jump in and we'd have some fun and Ryan could blow off a little of that excess energy which he always seems to have. I got on the floor and Ryan charged at me. I reached out to grab him and accidentally bopped him on the nose. Immediately his nose began to gush blood and he started to cry. I scooped him up and we ran to the kitchen where Nonnie provided us with some Kleenex to mop up his face. This whole thing - from me agreeing to get in on the fun to using Kleenex to wipe blood off his nose - took approximately 7 seconds.

I didn't mention that I had to teach my night class the day before and that I hadn't seen the boys since the previous morning. Given this fact, along with the fact that I was not feeling well when we got to Nonnie's house and that I subsequently moved immediately to the couch to rest unpon entry into said house, essentially my first real interaction with my son in almost 2 days involved me bonking him in the face and giving him a bloody nose.

It didn't seem to phase him too much. Once the bleeding stopped his first action was to start humming his theme music and he jump on me again. Very resilient, that kid.

Something new

I thought I'd try a new little thing in which I post more regularly. My kids (both the biological kind and the kind at school) give me enough material that I could probably write several posts a day, but I think I'll keep it realistic and attempt to get in at least 2 a week. I like doing this and I find that I don't do it often enough for my liking, so I am putting up an arbitrary goal to try and keep myself writing. We'll see how long this lasts.