The Monkey Barrel

Archive for February, 2008

A couple of mornings ago, around 4:30 in the a.m. to be exact, Luke came down the hall weeping uncontrollably about his baby sister. I said, “Luke honey you have a big brother, not a baby sister.” But he was beside himself and still half asleep so he crawled into bed with us where he sobbed, “But mommy, we has to doe ouside to play in da sandbox, betause Manga is making coffee for my sister.” And then more sobbing ensued until he realized that mommy was giggling under the covers and the tears subsided and he fell back to sleep. For those of you who don’t know, he calls gramma Manga and always has. Not sure how it is they sound alike but there it is. I can only imagine how his real nightmare went, but if he dreams like his mum then he’s in for some wild nights of weirdness.

And John learned his first joke. I cannot post it yet because he hasn’t been able to tell everyone he wants to tell and I don’t wanna spoil it. It’s a doozy tho and it made laugh out loud and he said, “Good laugh mom.”. That kid! Today marks 3 months that he has not had to flip his naughty card at school. 3 whole months of behaving himself and listening to his teacher. I can hardly stand it. He’s done whole months before and once he did 2 months in a row but 3 months! He’s amazing. We’re gonna have to do something big for him to mark the occasion.

I think that Valentine’s day aught to be renamed into a love the world sort of day. I generally can’t stand this holiday because I feel so much peer pressure to spend a gob of money on useless crap or candy that will make the kids insane and make me feel like a loser of a wife because I choose to buy nothing for Fred in lieu of a stupid stuffed animal that makes kissy noises. Grrrrrrrrr!
But frankly, the last two years have really been quite awesome. We usually have some weird disaster or are financially strapped to the wall after the Christmas/January gift and birthday extravaganza. But last year we happened to be in Epcot Center and it was a wonderful day. And yesterday, completely expecting nothing, I woke up to a card from the kids and from Fred and a beautiful little box with our whole family on the front by Willow Tree. I mean it was willow trees version of course but it was a mom dad and two kids and it was just awesome and more awesome because it was unexpected. I then felt stupid that I hadn’t gotten daddy anything from the boys or anything but a lousy card from myself so I went and did the commercial things and got balloons and candy and made dinner and carted valentines out to neighbors. But all in all, it was a sweet holiday.
But not one I expect to repeat. I would rather expect it to be silly or completely be blown off and be surprised to find it otherwise than the other way around.
So, Happy Valentines Day even if a bit belated because if you’re here reading this I must have loved you a lot to give you the link.