An eight year old learning to chat

Last week I helped Andrew set-up a gmail account...I never imagined how much fun it would be. Here are some of my favorites:

Over chat while avoiding american idol by working:

hey what you doing? american idol is almost over well see you crazy

In an email:

hi dad what are you doing . It sucks that you have school. get home!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (these go on for a whole page but I figure my readers get the effect)

While I was at a performance for my oldest son he chatted me:

get home please (note that I do not have cell phone which connects to the Internet)

In another email:

stop doing your lowsy work???!!!! (note rhetorical use of combined question mark and exclamation point...what a kid)

Ending on a somber note, through these little exchanges I've realized he is often wishing that I wasn't working so much...I had no idea. My lousy work???? But Andrew I'm a teacher!!!! Somehow I don't think he will care.

Waiting on the teens

I'm actually watching SNL, something I haven't done, other than off of You-Tube, for years. Why you might ask? Because I'm waiting for our almost-teen, Hana, and teenager, Seth, to get home. Alison has long been asleep so I'm on-call solo.

We don't really do this late night thing too well. Slowly chipping away at my late-night habits over the years, Alison has made 10:45pm seem late even on the weekend. I had to laugh when I read HTM's blog today where she mentioned staying up later because her 20 something son was out late. Many times we have--sorry to admit this in a public forum--fallen asleep while our teen was out and about. I guess we just suck as parents. Or maybe I just suck.

I have multiple distinct memories making a promise I am no longer keeping:

Groggily pleading out of a young parent haze, "Hon.... please... I promise. If you get up with the babies when they are you, I will stay up every weekend waiting for every one of our kids when they are teens. This is a good deal; it will just take some...."

"Ok, whatever."

"I love you...I love sweet sleep at 2am in the morning."

It seemed like a good plan at the time, but I didn't count on the fatal blow 14 yrs would have on my abilities to stay up, nor my waning worry about where they are. Well, here's my daughter, home from the movies. Should I call Seth at his friend's or simply go to sleep and figure his friend's parents will bring him home? It would be kind of fun not to call just to see how Seth would respond (while we have gone to sleep while he was out, we've never done it without a plan for his return). Would Seth worry about us? I highly doubt it. Would he come home earlyish, like midnight? Even less likely. Would he thank me in the morning for letting him stay out late? Probably.

Oh, shit guess I will go get him. Can't wait for a blast of 10 degree air. How in THE hell am I going to make it through another decade of this?

Parental Interview

Sunday afternoon: Seated on the couch when the oldest son enters and sits down, placing his hands on his knees:

"So you guys know your bed squeaks, right?"

"Does it?" he says with intentional nonchalance.

"Squeaks, huh?" she says with a little apprehension.

"Yes, it does. You know (breaking into song)... 'Making love in afternoon with Celia up in my bedroom'"

Floored and turning a shade of pink he says, "Oh, I see what you are getting at."

"Just so you know. It squeaks and has for some time."

"Wow, you are really sockin' it to us, aren't you?" he says.

"Just sayin'"

Out-of-Office-Reply

I was feeling pretty good about myself this morning: I'd found what I think will be a great little "memoir" piece on disability which I can use in my English 2010 courses to call attention to this year's writing conference theme on disability; also, found an online copy of "Speech sounds," a short story where a disease of some sorts has caused everyone to have a speech disability to use in my SF class to also support the writing conference theme (btw this took some searching dexterity as I had to locate the publishing history of Speech Sounds and then look up several of the books on Google books till I found one which allowed access to the story--just sayin).

And I fleshed out the first month of my new 2o10 schedule which is going to use Odell's updated textbook, now called Writing Now and my newly conceived methodology--basically, to spend more time with fewer genres allowing students to make their "choices" within each genre rather than choosing amongst genres for their final portfolio. For the non-writing teachers reading, don't worry if this last paragraph made no sense at all.

So, I was feeling pretty good about my accomplishments until I sent an email to the Writing and Social Justice committee to share the reading I found on diversity--almost everyone's email bounced back "Out of office Autoreply." WTF???!!! Seems most everyone is still partying and I'm sitting here, on the last Saturday morning of the break, working. I mean I don't even know how to set up an "Out of office" reply because I don't think I've ever been away from my email for long enough to worry about it. Is something wrong with me? Should my life, outside of my job, be more compelling so as to take me completely away from my work?

Well, I worried about these tough existential questions for about 2 seconds and then settled down to get a bit more work done. I'm done vacationing and I vacationed hard (as hard as a non-drinking dad of three can): trip to vegas with family, many xmas family engagements, chinese for xmas eve, night at the Anniversary in with my wife, lotta movies (Avatar, Blind Side, The Road, The Brother's Bloom--an excellent comedy btw, Watchmen, Valkyerie, Paper Heart--not so great), several snow/ice hikes.

So, to all those out-of-office folks, I'm officially ok to be getting some work done--it brings me peace to do some thinking about the spring, to have a foundation laid before I jump full on into work on Monday.