10 Questions I Asked My Kids

Welcome to Thursday. That makes tomorrow Friday! They’re calling for some snow here tomorrow night. 5-10 cm. Not much. But it is much because it’s March. They’re calling for another 10-20 sometime next week. But this is Cape Breton, ‘bye. That’ll change a dozen times between now and then. Plus we’re making a road trip next week. We don’t need no snow storm screwin’ up our plans.  I’m officially ready for spring. I’m tired of winter clothes.

1. If you were going to live on a desserted island, what 3 things would you want to take with you?

Crash: Food, games, and a TV
Bang: Ice cream, Cookies, and Toostie Rolls

2. When is a time I made you angry?

Crash: Not let me on my electronics
Bang: When we lost electronics

3. Want to be when you grow up?

Crash: Construction and ride in the cherry picker
Bang: Construction worker and drive the cherry picker

4. How can you tell when two people love each other?

Crash: They usally play together a lot
Bang: Because they’re hugging

5. What’s a good name for a pet elephant?

Crash: Geronimo
Bang: Tronto

6. What do you think your teacher likes best about you?

Crash: Everything
Bang: That I listen at school

7. What is something mom or dad can do that you wish you could do?

Crash: Stay up late all night and have unlimited amount of electronics
Bang: Play basketball

8. If you could have any animal in the world for a pet, what would you want?

Crash: A chameleon that can change colors
Bang: Giraffe

9. What Mom’s best body part?

Crash: Her head
Bang: Her ribs

10. What’s Dad’s best body part?

Crash: His arms
Bang: His skull

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Inconsolable

Bang woke at 5:30 in the morning.

0530. O’Dark 30. Butt crack of dawn. Actually, it was an hour before the dawn cracked.

Too frickin’ early if you ask me.

So I laid with him. He was content to lay and snuggle and hug my arm and pretend to fall asleep.

Then we heard Crash get up. 5:35. He went to the bathroom. I listened to see if he was going to try to sneak downstairs or go back to bed.

He tried to go down. “I don’t think so, chach. It’s only 5:35, go back to bed.” He did, but not willingly. There was some foot stomping. He didn’t slam his door, but he shut it pretty hard.

Sleep is for the dead. We’re not dead. More like zombies.

That’s the backstory.

This evening he was so tired he was nearly inconsolable. Nothing was right. No cup of milk in the fridge? Melt down. Filled the wrong cup? Melt down. Toy didn’t cooperate? Melt down. Loom band bracelet didn’t work? Melt down? Can’t find a train track piece? Melt down. This was at 5:00. Too early to send him to bed. I knew the melt downs were only because he was tired so I didn’t lose any patience. I just gave him what was available and once the melt down subsided he gave in and would accept what was offered.

After supper I did the dishes and got that mess out of the way. Then we headed to the basement to play. I played Lego (piecing together all the Lego people). Bang continued his melt down while building a train track for Thomas the Tank Engine. I didn’t laugh, but when he had a melt down because of a train track piece, it was kind of funny. He wanted to build a train track, so he dumped the whole bucket of track so he could find the right pieces. He needed a turn piece but couldn’t find it. Melt down. Then found it. Then he needed some straight pieces. Couldn’t find the exact one. Melt down. Oh here it is. This went on for 20 minutes. I was nearby, but left him alone. After 20 minutes of happy, melt down, happy, melt down he completed his track.

His finished product

It’s not the fanciest track in the world by any stretch of the imagination. But this track is perfect. It has zero dead ends. It has zero places where his train can’t turn around. He can drive his train forever. It loops back on itself.

By this point it was 6 pm and after waking at 5:30 am I was ready to start getting him ready for a slightly early bedtime. However, I couldn’t not let him play with his track he’d spent too many melt downs creating.

Please, dear God, let our kids sleep later than 5:30.

And no. I don’t mean 5:35, either.

If they are awake at that hour, guess what we’re doing?

Cleaning.  That’ll teach ’em to stay in bed longer.

*Note – Bang woke at 4:50, but I convinced him to go back to sleep. He slept until 6:40. Crash woke at 5:19 but I made him go back to bed and try to sleep. He got out of bed at 5:45 but I couldn’t drag myself out to go fight with him to clean. He wins this morning.

X-Ray

Crash has been nicknamed Crash for a reason. However, only once has his name sake required an X-Ray from one of his crashes. A couple months before his second birthday we were visiting my parents. What was at one time my bedroom, another time it was my brother’s room was, at the time of our visit, a weight room. Curious Crash went in unsupervised because we were busy packing up to head back home. All was quiet until he screamed…