Spring Ahead!

Dave sez,

So, once again, I am trying to explain to the kids how we Spring Ahead. Coming up next weekend, March 7th and 8th, we set the clocks ahead one hour. We lose an hour of sleep. In return we get more daylight. This is what is known as Daylight Saving(s) Time. Everything is new to Bella. New things can be kind of scary. Her first year home is winding down and she has managed to survive a lot of new things. First time on an airplane. New home, new environment. Rules. New food. New school. New friends. Rules. She's taking it all in very well. Patiently. A sort of blank expression on her face. Ethan and Justin are looking at me like I'm trying to add Purple and Banana to equal Twelve. And, by the way, I still love the way Justin pronounces the word "twelve"! He's kind of grown out of it, now, but when he first came home he would enunciate the word as "tweh-lev". Justin, what's ten plus two? Justin, what's thirteen minus one? Justin, how old are you? For me, that joke never got old. It did real quick for him, though. My son tried to summon all the midichlorians he was born with to Force-choke me to stop. Trying to explain the time change to Ethan and his brother just makes the two of them look at me cross-eyed. Ethan screws up his face and says, "Heh?"

Sunday, March 8th, 2015

This is an ideal example of customs that we have, however you want to classify "us" - Americans, Midwesterners, Parents - that our kids have to adapt to. I've shared how Justin's first breakfast at home was biscuits and gravy - my favorite. It was our first weekend home with Justin, Cathy asked what I wanted. I told her. She made it. Our son didn't say that he did not like biscuits and gravy. He said that biscuits and gravy was bad. We didn't have biscuits and gravy again until Ethan came home the following December. Friends told us that instead of not making biscuits and gravy because Justin didn't like it, Cathy should have made biscuits and gravy until Justin became more accustomed to it and learned to enjoy it as much as I did. What we are learning as parents is that all three kids need time to adjust and become accustomed to new things.

It's funny how confusing the time change still is to Justin. He's been home the longest. It's like explaining time travel.

It's like I'm explaining a trip around the sun or how to walk through the Guardian of Forever.

 

Justin keeps asking, "Wait a minute...will we be getting up later?" No, you'll be getting up for school at the same time. It will just seem later. Six in the morning will seem like seven in the morning. It will be six in the morning. But it will feel like seven. Kinda like the wind chill factor, where nine below actually feels like thirty below because of the driving, howling, biting wind.

"But won't we be getting up later?"

Justin gets confused because I actually try to explain how six o'clock will actually be more like seven o'clock. My Mom used to help me with math using blocks. She would have ten blocks; and then, take away five blocks and put them behind her back. She would ask me how many blocks she had after putting the five blocks behind her back. I would tell her she still had ten, five on the table in front of us and five behind her back. Which is why I have always considered Math my Lex Luthor. Or, Ultron (The Avengers 2: Age of Ultron in theaters May 1! I am so excited!!!) Stupid Math. Stupid building block of EVERYthing - including how we will eventually communicate with aliens!

So, I understand Justin's, Ethan's and Bella's confusion. I try to be as patient with them as I hope my Mom - and most every one else around me - is with me.

It's funny; because at some point, Justin is going to come and sit beside me and ask me what time it really is.

      

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First Dance

Dave sez, I guess I didn't have to worry after all. Justin is enjoying Friends. With no side effects. He thinks Ross is pretty whiney and Joey is pretty dumb. I guess, when he gets older, he'll appreciate it differently than he does now... Cathy and I are watching it a little slower than he is. We just finished the episode where Phoebe's brother is in love with his teacher, which is a little on the creepy side. Cathy and I agree that we're not fans of Giovanni Ribisi. We've seen him in James Cameron's Avatar and as Nicholas Cage's younger brother in Gone in 60 Seconds. As much as I liked the old The Mod Squad, I couldn't bring myself to see it because he was in it. We haven't seen him in a role that he had any redeeming or likeable qualities as a character. Hopefully, you won't think less of me for not liking him as Phoebe's brother and not liking his whole storyline. The real-life stories like that don't have punch lines, laugh tracks or happy endings. Not everybody grows up like Rachel, or Monica and Ross. Some people grow up like Chandler and Phoebe. Ribisi's storyline as Frank, Jr. is just bizarre. Even more bizarre is that it's played for laughs.

 
Two months ago, there was a "bend in the road". Bella's First Christmas and First New Year's was quieter and more low key than Ethan's and Justin's were. So was First Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I had the day off yesterday, and the phone rang. We missed answering it. A couple minutes later, my cell phone rang. It was Bella. From school. At first, I was worried that she had missed the bus. She was excited on the phone. She was asking if she could go to a dance at school last night. Once I figured that out, I handed the phone to Cathy. I grabbed a paper bag to breathe into.

Last night was First Dance.

I think I've done pretty well up until now. Justin has had his "brushes" with girls. He talks to Mom, because Mom "understands girls". That's because she are one. Ethan is all about video games right now.

Bella was very excited about her First School Dance. She doted over her make-up and what she was going to wear. I chewed on my finger nails. The car ride over to school, I told her to have fun...but if anything happened - any thing at all - I told her to be sure to tell an adult. I reminded her that she could call Mom and me at any time, and I would come get her. I even asked her if she knew how to dial 9-1-1.

When I picked her up from school, I asked her if she had fun.

"No!" she told me. I had mixed feelings about hearing that. On the one hand, deep down inside I was cheering, "Yes!" I told her out loud that I was sorry to hear that. I asked her why. She said there was this one boy. Oh, there you go, it usually starts with one boy. He kept looking over at her, but he never came over to talk to her. My princess daughter told me that she thought this boy was too nervous. I told her that boys usually are pretty nervous about making a good impression - or, the right impression. Bella told me that she and her girlfriend spent most of their time at the dance together and all she had to eat there was chips. And she was starving! So, while she and Mom talked about what happened at First Dance, I threw a pizza on the Pizza Pizazz.

I love the personalities I see coming out in my three children. I love their senses of humor. Bella is usually pretty quiet. The boys are usually pretty loud and bombastic. There are moments, though, when Bella's eyes bug out and sparkle and she gets pretty animated and she makes jokes that make Cathy and I both laugh. She's a budding Tina Fey. She's witty and sarcastic and funny. She's funny in a dry, British sort of way.

Someday, Cathy and I are going to "adopt" a young man as her Prince Charming.

I'm probably going to have to invest in a lot of paper bags.           

The One About Being There For You

 

Dave sez,

Here's what I know: in any relationship, you pick the battles you know you can win. You don't start a fight you think you might lose. Compromise is never a sign of weakness if done correctly. And by "correctly", I mean, every one gets something close to what they wanted in the first place. Life is what happens after you make plans.

Cathy and I are navigating the mine field of electronics.

You might remember when we were all kids, we had one form of entertaining ourselves: outside. Then, the first electronic device was invented; it was called the television. I remember growing up as The Human Remote. The only "control" I had was in changing the channel to what other people wanted to watch. I think it was when I finally moved out, and Cathy and I got married that I learned to enjoy the shows she liked to watch. It's really kind of fun to heckle home improvement shows, y'know like Mystery Science Theater 3000, where they sit and heckle old, bad movies? Yeah, like that.

Navigating the mine field of electronics means we are learning about our kids' tastes. Bella like young adult romances like Twilight. She's not a big Harry Potter fan, like the boys are. I took all the Harry Potter films with when Cathy and I went to bring Bella home last Spring. Yeah, they pretty much sat, lonely and unwatched. Bella was gifted with a tablet while in the orphanage. She used the internet connection in the apartment to watch YouTube videos of programs in Ukrainian. She does like Big Time Rush and Drake and Josh, just like the boys, though.

She's pretty easy that way.

The boys are a little bit more of a challenge. Ethan likes WWE and combat. Cathy's not much for blood and guts. I realize that even though we own Saving Private Ryan, I've never actually seen it. We have Black Hawk Down, I've watched it once or twice. I'm shocked - shocked, I tells ya! - that we do not have Patton in our DVD collection. That's like the Blazing Saddles of war  movies. Ethan keeps asking to watch "fight" or "battle" movies, and we keep deflecting, mainly because it easier for all of us to watch a family movie than clear the room so he and I can watch a war movie.

Cathy and I have been watching Friends on Netflix. Maybe you are, too. That's kind of been a big deal that the show is streaming on Netflix now. Not that I'm trying to promote the show or the streaming or the Netflix; but Justin has discovered Friends and is watching it with us. He's even getting better at the clapping. He's clapping at the right time and on beat, but we have to work on the only clapping the once and then moving on.

I'm not sure how I feel about Justin watching Friends. I know that Ethan doesn't understand when I tell him that WWE is not entirely - *ahem* - completely (SPOILER ALERT) real. If Mom were to hit me with a folding chair or a table, or land a pile driver on me, she's probably need a pretty good reason. Oh, and I'd end up in the hospital, eating my food through a straw. I'm not exactly sure I want Justin to learn about relationships through Friends. Especially, since we've reached The One Where Ross and Rachel Take a Break. Not to mention Chandler's on again, off again relationship with Janice, and pretty much all of Joey.

Cathy and I like to watch the show, not so much for Ross and Rachel, or Joey or Phoebe, but for Chandler and Monica. We have a running conversation going, where we point out all the times before London ("London, bay-bee!"), where Chandler and Monica are sitting, if they are sitting next to one another; how they are sitting together; and, how often they confide in each other. Chandler and Monica seemed to be this great big secret that was keep for four seasons, before they started keeping the secret of being together.

Still, that's not something I think I want him to experience without supervision.

I'm nervous about it, because right now, the show we all can agree on is Castle.

It's amazing the things we become comfortable with isn't it? There's some mayhem and violence on the show, but it's not intense violence and mayhem. Castle reminds me of getting through high school watching Remington Steele. It's kind of fun bonding with the kids over what they like to watch. I remember when Big Time Rush was called The Monkees. Harry Potter was Encyclopedia Brown and he didn't have a film franchise. Harry, Hermione and Ron used to be The Mod Squad, and they looked pretty old for teenagers.

I'm just hoping that Justin makes it through Ross and Rachel's break-up okay...