2 Minutes for Hold 'Em

Dropping of some stuff at the drycleaner's last night, the proprietress had the Olympic Games on the TV. The TV looks like it got picked up from the side of the road somewhere. The colour is dingy and the picture is full of snow and static. There's a coat hanger for an aerial. This is kind of appropriate when you remember where you are. There's a hockey game being shown and I have to get right up close to peer and squint at the mini-scoreboard at the top right of the screen just to see who's playing. Even so, I can only tell that one of the teams is Russia. The other team is ... Sweden, I guess? Slovakia, the lady tells me.

Me: Hey, did you know that the Team Canada men played against Italy today? And guess who won.

Boy: Team Canada?

Me: Yes! And guess what the score was. Guess how many Team Canada got.

Boy: Twenty?

Me: Less. It was the men playing.

(We played an impromptu game of higher/lower until:)

Boy: Seven?

Me: Right. Guess how many Italy got.

Boy: Zero?

Me: Higher.

Boy: Five?

Me: Lower.

Boy: Two?

Me: Right! Canada won 7-2.

Boy: Hey! That's the worst hand!

Weird Dreams; Cats Read Calendars

For the second night in a row, the Boy was awake at 3:30am. On the first night, he was in Mamma's bed and Mamma was trying to get him to go back to his own bed. Last night he was up coughing and going to the bathroom like he was going to throw up. My alarm clock is set to go off at 5:50 am, so I know for the second day in a row that I'm in for a tough morning. I throw of the covers and go to the Boy. He is lying on the floor. I pick him up and he hugs me tight as I take him back to his bed, laying his head down on my shoulder. I can feel how cold his cheek is from having it pressed to the stone tile floor. We go back to his room. I'm carefull to step around all the toys on the floor. I tuck him in, give him a kiss, tell him I love him and go back to my own bed. I'm almost asleep when he goes back into the bathroom. More coughing. He doesn't throw up either time, but he's not feeling well. I hunker down next to him and rub his back. When he's finished I give in and ask if he wants to come and lie down with me for a while (knowing it will be for the night) and he gratefully accepts.

Eventually, sleep comes. Dreams mix with reality.

One of the cats, Ginger, jumps on the bed and starts to prowl around. In my dream, we're in the other bed and the Boy is on the other side of me, sitting up laughing like he's being tickled as the cat plays with his squirming feet under the blanket. In the dream I reach for the cat and throw her off the bed. I have a memory of reaching out and sweeping the cat off the bed. It might have been real or a different part of another dream, I'm not sure.

The alarm clock goes off. I'm in the bed with the Boy who's back on his own side. I reach for the alarm and hit the snooze button, figuring it's been a long night; I'll rest here a bit more.

The alarm goes off again. I reach and hit the snooze button, figuring it hasn't seemed like a long time since it went off the first time, wondering just how many minutes the snooze button gives me anyway.

I look at the clock. It says it's 5:50 am.

It takes me a moment to realize that the first time the clock went off, it was a dream.

I lie there as Ginger prowls a circle around the circumference of the bed. She steps on the Boy's neck and he says, "Ow."

Me: Did she scratch you?

Boy: No. She just put her claw on my neck. It didn't hurt though. But do you know what the best part was?

Me: No. What?

Boy: When she gave me licks because it's Valentine's Day.

Getting the Boot

Daddy needs a new pair of shoes.

Meanwhile, the Boy has a new pair of boots.

He formed an instant dislike to them, not for the colour or the style, but because they're difficult to pull on. Originally, he refused to put them on for Mamma. I helped him get them on over the weekend, and now he's grudgingly acceptant.

I picked him up at the Daycare - which never goes as quickly as I hope. There's dawdling and poking around and getting distracted by any of a hundred and one things. He's getting help from one of the daycare workers getting the new boots on. The lady asks if he's good to go.

Boy: I just have to comfortable it.

Getting Rid of What Ails You

Homework went badly last night.

Mommy was in charge and I didn't quite get all the specifics, but it was done poorly enough that Mommy forbade the playing of video games for the rest of the evening. The Boy came downstairs where I was and sat with me watching as I played a bit of poker on-line. He wasn't in a good mood when he got there, but perked up a little as he played along with me. He had asked me the night before to play PlayStation and I'd said no. He had asked the day before as well, but that was SuperBowl Sunday. There had been a lot playing Crash NitroCart in recent days (each of us successfully completing an adventure, firsts for us if you must know).  I figured that a break was okay.

So when he came downstairs in ill spirits, I said I'd play until I won my chips back that I'd lost. Ask any gambler what a fool's game that is, but I won it back (and more) pretty quickly, so true to my word, I turned off the computer to turn on PlayStation. At this point the Boy told me that I would play and he would watch. Well, why just me playing, I wondered? Of course, that's when he told me the homework story and that Mommy told him no PlayStation.

I sensed a loophole.

Better check with legal.

I went upstairs and the Boy followed behind at a distance. Mommy never issued a judgement except to say it was bath time and the both of us should go upstairs. Upon further review, I guess it was a judgement. Immediately, the Boy's mood turned again and he got sad, angry and frustrated.

Boy: I knew I shouldn't have come upstairs.

I took him (up-side-down) upstairs for a bath. Despite my efforts to cheer him up, the Boy clung to his dark mood like grim death, supressing smiles, grinning for a moment only to lash out, angry that I'd made him smile. Stuff like that. As he got out of the tub and was getting dried off, he summed up his frustration.

Boy: Every time I want to play Crash NitroCart, someone says it's time to do something else so now I want to sell it.

Over his head, Mommy's eyes met mine and we shared his little moment with a small, sad smile.

Say Cheeseburger.

So I've seen "Super Size Me." 

The part where the guy throws up after eating his super-sized quarter-pounder meal was noteworthy. As was the part where his doctor told him, you should stop or you might die. It was interesting to see the documentarian describe how McDonald's targets the kids with their advertising so they'll bring in their parents.

Now, you don't have to watch the movie to know that fast food is bad for you. So to pre-empt the marketing assault McDonald's makes on my child, I've always made it a key component of my counter-assault that whenever we go by a McDonald's, I call it "Yucky Ol' McDonalds". I think I may have mentioned this previously, somewhere in this blog. After seeing the movie, I'm better equipped to explain to him why. How, in the movie, the guy ate only McDonald's for a month and really made his body sick. I figure it's good to be able to tell him all this and leave an imprint because he's only too quick to tell me how it's his friends' favourite place to go eat.

So, anyway.

It's Saturday and it's music lesson day, and his lesson ends at 1:30 and neither of us has had lunch. I figure I'll spring for a restaurant so long as it's cheap. I ask the Boy and he tells me that it's up to me to pick. I tell him I'm either thinking Pizza Girls or Dairy Queen.

Now, I know what you're thinking. Hardly what you'd expect from an anti-advocate of the fast food franchise, huh.

Be that as it may.

Despite his assurance that he wanted to leave the choice to me, the Boy decides he'd like to go to Wendy's. Now of all the fast food places, you could argue that Wendy's has been the most unapologetic about catering to Mrs. Big and Mr. Large. After all, they don't make things Super, they make them "Biggie". Did you notice when their ads didn't use a lot of skinny people?

So the Boy has picked Wendy's and he's looking to justify that Wendy's is okay since it's not as yucky as McDonald's. I tell him that, really,  it's mostly the same fattening things like burgers and fries and cheese and pop.

Same as McDonald's.

Boy: But McDonald's make you fat and sick. Wendy's only makes you fat.