Things To Do Before Bedtime

Mamma came downstairs at 8:10 and I realized that I hadn't said "goodnight" and "I love you" to the Boy. I started upstairs despite Mamma's warning that he might already be asleep. As I cautiously approached the door, I heard a little whispered, "...dadda...!" and I come into the room to give him a hug and a kiss. Our conversation is in whispers.

Boy: Why did you come up, Dadda?

Me: To say goodnight and I love you.

Boy: aahhhhh!

Me: You were so good last night, a really big boy sleeping in your own bed, you try to stay in your own bed again tonight again, okay? Daddy is so proud of you when you can do big-boy things like that.

Boy: Okay. I'll try.

Me: Okay. Goodnight sweetheart. I love you so much.

Boy: Can you go brush your teeth now?

But Can He Hit a 1-Iron?

The Boy is in the white van that drives him from school to the after-school daycare. It's a month and two days before Christmas and visions of sugarplums seem to have started their dance in his head. He's talking with his friend Peter. The driver overhears their conversation and relates it to me later.

Boy: Santa Claus must be really rich.

Peter: Santa Claus is richer to infinity.

Boy: Santa Claus is richer than Tiger Woods.

It's What's Inside That Counts

Halloween is two weeks in the wrong direction. Vestiges remain. There is a big box of leftover treats downstairs. They belong to a Boy and daily test my willpower. There are three pumpkins on our front step: one was for the house, one came decorated as a present for the Boy's birthday party and another was required to decorate at the Boy's after-school center.

Every day I come home I expect to find one or all of them smashed on the road (rotten teenagers). But they survived. Until yesterday, when Mamma told the Boy to put them all in the green bin. This he did with my help as we got ready to go skating.

On the walk to the rink, only two houses down, there's the splatter of someone else's smashed pumpkin in the roadway. The Boy wants to collect up the seeds to plant in the garden.

Mamma: You want to grow your own pumpkin for next year?

Boy: Yes, please!

Mamma: Well we'll buy some good seeds. These ones are all run-over and no good.

Boy: You mean the little pumpkin inside is all squished?

Frankenpoker

There's nothing like a hard losing streak in the on-line poker world to suggest that maybe you're forming an addiction.
And there I was again on Friday night and my luck started to turn back. I won a really big pot, my biggest one yet, and the next morning I told the story to a Boy.
Me: So I was dealt Jack, Three and then somebody raised before the flop and I decided what the heck, I'd stay in and you know what came on the flop?
Boy: What?
Me: Jack, Three.
Boy: Ooo!
Me: So I made a big bet to try to scare everyone away and take the pot for myself but they didn't fold! They called! So I went all-in. And you know what came out on the river? Another Jack!
Boy: You had a full house!
I'll play and the Boy will often sit on my lap and "advise" me. He's also learning the game pretty well as the previous little vignette illustrates. We were playing together yesterday afternoon and I'm out of the hand; the two of us are watching how the others around the table are playing. The five cards showing on the table are three, Jack, five, ten, four. The guy on the top left makes a big bet after the river card is turned. The Boy says to me:
Boy: That guy has Ace, Two.
The players revealed their cards, and the guy turned over Ace, Two.
Six years old, I'm thinking. I've created a monster.

Concerning Venus and the Absence of All-Bran

It was a weird day at the grocery store yesterday.

I like my grocery store. And not just because I was in a commercial for it once. See, one day I walked through the doors and there's Mr. Lahey from the Trailer Park Boys with his video camera interviewing folks as they came in. In real life he's John Dunsworth, a long-time casting agent for the area. He recognized me as an ACTRA member, shot the bit and I got picked to do the commercial.

But enough about me.

Yesterday, because it was getting really close to supper time, the Boy and I are trying going through the store as fast as we can...

(Dash: As fast as I can?!?)

(Helen: As fast as you can!)

... and I keep having to call back home to Mamma to ask her what she wanted, either because it wasn't clear on the list or because the item wasn't in the store and I need to know whether to buy something different or wait until next time. There are about four or five things on the list that aren't in the store. Very unusual. So I ended up calling home about three times, taking out my cell phone, clicking the voice activation button and saying the keyword that automatically dials home: "Stinkbucket".

The Boy gets a kick out of that.

On the way home, in the commencing evening dusk, the planet Venus appears in the windshield, shining pure white in the clear blue sky. I point this out to the Boy and we have a little chat about Venus. I tell him, you know how the Earth has clouds around a lot of the planet? Well, Venus has clouds around all of the planet and that's part of the reason it's so bright with the sun bouncing of all those clouds. We have a little talk about the sun too. He wants to know if it's as hot as a burning tree and I tell him that it's hotter that if the whole planet was burning and he's very impressed by that. He then turns the subject back to Venus.

Boy: Daddy, why don't you say "Venus" into your phone and we can call it.

Lest One Forget

The Boy, Mamma and I are walking up the street on our way to the Sunday family skate when the Boy pipes up out of the blue: Boy: Do you know what Novembrance Day is? Me: Novembrance Day? Boy: It's November the 11th.