Not easy to come out the hero here at the Ranch. Seems my whole job is to say No! to my son. He really would like nothing more than to occupy 98.4+% of his grandmother's time. Intellectually, he understands that Grandpa Harold needs a lot of help but the scope of the job is really beyond him. And so it's up to me to remind him 10-12 times a day to not add to Tutu's work. Just this morning. it was that he should have been just as enthusiastic for the pizza option as the hamburger option. Tutu can just buy one but has to make the other. Imagine hearing something like that from your old man over and over.

And over....

As you know, we went to the King Tut Exhibit yesterday. Glad we went but Xander ended up getting rather bored about half way through the thing. You can only look at so many old statues before antsiness sets in. But for me, highlight was seeing the Ancient Egyptian Unguent Jars. No, really. I excitedly dragged the boy and wife over to see. (To their great unexcitement.)

Another thrilling Wednesday in Kitsap County. Got two texts from you today. Well, so I thought. The first told me of a Huge Scary Spider looming above the front door. The rest of the message, that is, the words below the second line, were unknown to me as I CAN'T SCROLL DOWN on my %$#@'ing phone!!! 

Thus ends my three solo days with Wendi at work and Xander at Martha and Mary Kids' Camp. Starting tomorrow, the Mrs. and I will attempt to keep out of each other's hair. I have plenty left on my To-Do list, though it's much shorter than it was Monday morning.

Said morning, I chainsawed up the rest of the tree that fell now two winters ago. We still have a bit of firewood left over from last year but I get such a feeling of comfort from having way too much winter supplies. Bring on Snowpocolypes!

My son is in the TV Room (aka Family Room/aka The Room Where We Watch TV) sleeping peacefully after a wild night of, well, sleeping in the TV Room. This is big stuff for him. Quite possibly the first time he's ever done that. "Why?" you ask. 

Well I tried a bit of dad psychology and it backfired. Let me set it up.

Thanks to our new Netflix Streaming service, we have a large selection of movies/TV shows to watch whenever the fancy strikes us. (And our shitty-assed ISP isn't on the fritz.)

So Friday night, it was time to introduce the boy to some real culture.

Well, when we left off last night's Monopoly game, our first "for reals" attempt, Xander had the most money, Wendi had the most property and I had less than $100 and one of my properties was mortgaged. This was after roughly 90 minutes. It didn't look good. 

Yesterday was a pretty good day (though, of course I woke too early. Why do I ever stay up late when I know I’ll just get up the same time as always?) Xander’s current swim lessons are over so Wendi and he’ll just go to open swim. (Wendi is just sure the Lifeguard will spot her cold sore and throw her out. You there! You in the water! Let me take a closer look at that lip!) His lesson time is now two hours before open swim so we’re not sure if he’ll stay with lessons.

First, some background. For the past couple of weeks, Xander has been enthralled by “The Spiderwick Chronicles”; a series of five short books which detail the adventures of the modern-day Grace Family as I have read the books to him each night (two or three nights per books) and now he had all 5 books on CD borrowed from the Public Library. (He now has suggestions for my dramatic readings….)

Well, Xander has survived his 7th birthday. Though he didn’t get much in the way of presents. In fact, the only concrete thing he had to show for the day are two tiny plastic rabbits and a corresponding little hutch. Some kids would be dissatisfied with such a haul but not X-man. He picked out the bunnies himself while at Toys R Us where we were ordering him a bike. Not the 24” monster the “expert” recommended. At 20” wheels, he was barely able to stand up and reaching for the handbrakes was iffy at best. I foresaw many crashes as my son, my heir, furiously tried to apply the non-existent foot brakes. So we went with the smaller bike which needed to be special ordered. A larger bike would have lasted longer but he wouldn’t have.