Wonder Woman, Regressions and Digressions

The boys had Monday and Tuesday off of school this week.

As I mentioned in my previous post, Calvin went to stay with my parents in the Orlando area.

Grandmother fed him as much ice cream and red meat as his little heart desired. In return, he dug holes, trimmed crepe myrtle trees and moved various plants from point "a" to point "b."

Wesley spent the time, quite miserable, with me.

He was instructed to clean his room on Saturday.

It was clean by noon on Monday .

During that time, the uncooperativeness caused the Legos littering his room to be packed up and put away.

My reasoning was that if he wasn't going to pick those evil little buggers up, they would be taking an open-ended hiatus. The ones left on the floor in the common areas are regularly sucked up through the vacuum hose.

He doesn't know that, though.

The uncooperativeness continued through Sunday, so his action figures were also cleared out.

He cried. He begged for mercy as I threw the Star Wars, the Spidermans and the Fantastic Four characters in the large garbage bag that will be stored in an undisclosed location until I see fit.

So, basically the current entertainment in his room consists of three shelves of books.

I don't think that taking toys away is a bad thing ~ or mean ~ at all.

I'm not hitting him too much as of late, so given the choice of two punishments, I think he would happily accept the former rather than the latter. Totally kidding.

And good grief, in the old days, kids played with string or mud. Or rocks. Or a variation of the three.

The peer pressure on Monday finally broke him. His friends came to do the door no less than three times in less than 30 minutes, wondering how long it could POSSIBLY take for him to clean his room (if only they knew) and why wasn't he finished, already?

As they were waiting, they hovered and rode their bicycles and scooters in circles on the street in front of our house. They looked like deranged little Energizer Bunnies.

Yesterday morning I decided that we were going to Orlando.

I threw the Pack N Play in the back of the SUV and herded the cats. We arrived around lunchtime. My mother was at one of her numerous doctor's appointments.

I'm not exactly sure why this happens, but I regress the moment I walk into my parents' house. Chris comments on it all the time and asks why my ability to think for and take care of myself completely disappears once I walk inside my parents' home.

My brother and I sat in Mom and Dad's rocking chairs, looking at each other.

The kids tore through the house maniacally trying to tackle each other to perform wedgies. The goal: rip the underwear. Although I very clearly disapproved, this activity was highly encouraged by Tony. Thus, my authority was completely negated. I am not as cool as he is, nor do I buy them Abercrombie and Fitch clothing.

"What was mom doing for lunch," I asked. It was now 1pm.

We were all hungry and, upon walking through the front door of this house our brains had fallen out and we all forgot where to find sandwich meat and how to make ourselves sandwiches.

Mother returned at 1:30 with Chick Fil A. And she remembered the extra barbecue sauce for my waffle fries. Something not even Chris always does.

I had an unusual burst of energy (or, rather, lots of babysitters) so I vacuumed out my car. This is no small feat ~ let me tell you ~ as it hadn't been done all summer and we visited the beach at least once a week since July.

I then took the car to the local car wash and paid ten bucks for the "Ultimate" wash.

As we left after dinner that evening the heavens unleashed their fury, in the form of rain, on my freshly washed car.

GREAT, I just flushed ten more dollars down the toilet, in addition to the GI Joe Snake Eyes costume I bought for Wesley. He shows a great amount of enthusiasm for the costume, but it is too tight in the crotch area and I'm concerned that it is not entirely appropriate for him to wear to school on Friday.

He thinks it is just fine. What to do, what to do.

I wasn't going to dress Maggie up, but I recently saw pictures of a friend's daughter dressed up in a kick ass Wonder Woman costume that I believe I must have.

My daughter WILL be Wonder Woman, you know, in real life. I feel as if my opportunity to be rockin' and wonderful has passed me by at times, but I am totally not above living vicariously through her.

"You can do ANYTHING! You want to be the president AND a doctor AND a paleontologist? SURE YOU CAN! You are STRONG! You are SMART! You will take no sh**! TEAM MARGARET!"

She'll look back at pictures of herself dressed as Wonder Woman when she was 17 months old and will be all, "This is where it all started, folks. "

Alas...I digress.

It is back to life as normal for Calvin. Back to canned soup, the un-fun cereal (Raisin Bran). There is no ice cream for him to inhale. Wesley's room is still clean as a whistle, mostly because there are no toys for him to throw around.

Netflix finally sent a movie on the top of my queue, instead of my crappy fourth, fifth and sixth choices.

So we will all be watching Transformers 2 this evening and eating popcorn. I can't think of a better way to spend a fall evening.