My new year's resolution

This time of year it seems that everyone makes their new year’s resolutions. Usually it’s something like eating healthier or exercising more. Nah, I’m not interested in either of those. I mean I’m not giving up my Sour Patch Kids and Krispy Kremes. And the idea of jogging isn’t as tempting as say lying on the couch watching back-to-back episodes of Bromance and The City…..while eating Sour Patch Kids and Krispy Kremes. I guess mine isn’t a resolution per se, but simply something I want to accomplish. I have DVD’s out the rear that are sitting in boxes out in the garage. I just don’t have the time to watch them anymore, so I need to just put them in someone’s garage sale and get rid of them. Here’s the problem: I can’t seem to let them go without watching each of them one more time. So my new year’s resolution is to re-watch 400-odd movies by the end of 2009. Now some may scoff and ask where’s the challenge in that. I would respond by asking them if they have ever tried sitting through a second viewing of From Justin To Kelly. Ya, keeping your butt on the treadmill seems like a walk in the park next to that. When I told Rachel my plan, her only objection was to make sure I didn’t get rid of the classics. I, too, would have a hard time tossing aside Casablanca or The Godfather or Field of Dreams. When I asked her what other pillars of cinematic excellence she wanted me to set aside, Rachel had the audacity to utter the words How To Lose A Guy In Ten Days. I almost swerved into the oncoming lane of traffic. After taking a few seconds to regain my composure, as politely as I could I told her that a more apt categorization would be something like “expendable chick flick trash.” That didn’t go over well. So basically we’ll also be saving the entire Kate Hudson film catalog, along with Hope Floats, 50 First Dates, and Runaway Bride. The things I do for the woman I love.

The curious case of Ella Ritchason

Tonight the kids and I ran to Kroger to pick up a few items. Ella is at that stage where she asks questions about everything. It's like living with a three year old Diane Sawyer.

• "Why are we getting chicken?"
• "Why are strawberries too expensive?"
• "Why can't we eat the donuts now?"
  
• "Why did Liam open that new box of cereal?"
  
• "Why is it too cold for popsicles?"
• "Why is that boy in that cart eating his boogies?"

With only one more thing to buy, we headed down the toilet paper aisle. I stopped midway down the row next to an elderly gentleman who bore a striking resemblance to a young (or is it old?) Benjamin Button. He was very kind and said hello to both Ella and Liam. I made my decision and threw the package into the cart. As fate would have it, just as we passed the man, Ella pointed and exuberantly declared, "Look Daddy! That man has diapers just like Liam!" I'll admit that I was tempted to grab the Depends from the man's grasp and shove them in my daughter's mouth. As you can imagine, while we were waiting for the cashier the ring up our groceries, young Katie Couric had a laundry list of questions about the man and his adult diapers. I finally just said that maybe he was getting them for a baby that was at his house. She replied matter of factly, "Daddy, grandpas can't have babies."

Rerouted

This morning I ordered some items from Amazon for some last-minute Christmas gifts. When I received my confirmation email I noticed that I hadn’t chosen our home address as the shipping address. Instead it would be delivered to school. After tomorrow at 3:10 there won’t be a soul in sight around here until January 5. I found the customer service number and dialed. When an actual person actually picked up it sounded like I was calling Santa himself at the North Pole. The line was so full of static that I could barely make out the Indian elf on the other end. I tried to explain what the problem was to which the woman on the other end responded with what sounded like “odor blubber.” I think she mistakenly thought I had ordered a rotting dead whale carcass, which I hear is one of the hot ticket items for the holidays. After the fourth time repeating “I’m sorry, I can’t understand you” I think she was mad and sounded out in her best American accent “Orrrrrrrrrderrrrrrrrrrr Nummmmmmberrrrrrrrrrr.” I gave it to her and she pulled up my account. She said that she could reroute the shipment to the other address I had on file. I told her that would be great and she confirmed that the order would now be shipped to 106 Constitution Drive in Milford, Connecticut. Of course I immediately tried to explain to her that this was not my address and by her silence on the other end I could tell that this completely baffled her. She asked me when was the last time I lived there to which I responded with “never.” I think she was beginning to wonder if I was a battered husband that had gone into the witness protection program. I then had to repeat my address over and over. “No, not Girl Street….Earl Street….E-A-R-L…. No, there’s no B….I don’t live on Barl Street.” Exactly 21 minutes later I ended the call, praying that it would get delivered to the right address. If not, my brother will be opening up a gift of leftover apple juice from our Christmas party today.

And the day just started

So it’s been a crazy busy morning so far. I was out on playground duty this morning and saw one of my students get out of her car and start walking my way. As she was walking a deep-voiced man in the car yelled her name but she didn’t hear it. It sounded like her mom’s boyfriend who picks her up from school on occasion. So I spoke up and said “Arianna, that guy in your car needs you.” She looked at my quizzically, glanced back at her car, and said “That’s my mom.” My mistake.

As soon as we got inside another girl brought up a note to me. It read:

Sydney has a bad cough. Sucking on things makes it better. I’ve sent her with a bag of suckers. Please let her eat as many of these as she needs to. This will help her throat feel better.

Yes, because having a student eating a never-ending supply of Blow Pops all day isn’t going to create any problems in the classroom.

Fashion forward

I don’t understand Ella’s fashion choices. I’m definitely out of the loop because everything she throws on looks like an outfit designed by an eliminated Project Runway contestant. This morning she came down the stairs wearing this, saying that she was going to Starbucks. Unless you’re Gwen Stefani, I’m not sure that you can pull off that look. Something tells me that Garrett the nineteen-year old barista wouldn’t understand it either.

Tonight Rachel was at work, so the kids and I had a simple meal of bacon, eggs, and English muffins. Ella’s all about helping out in the kitchen these days so I placed her in charge of putting butter on the muffins. She ran off and came back twenty seconds later dressed as a ladybug because we all know that you can’t spread butter without resembling a three-foot beetle. She put enough on one English muffin to kill someone instantly with one bite. I’ve seen Scottish castles that are smaller.

Secret Santa

This last week of school is our annual Secret Santa festivities. It can be a mixed bag because one year I received great gifts (Starbucks every day for a month) but the next year really sucked (a peach candle anyone?). Now I realize I can’t control who my Secret Santa is, but I can conspire to pick out who I want to buy gifts for. So two weeks ago when we had to draw out names I picked over and over until I got someone I was excited about. I made up a variety of excuses for the first seven names I drew out:

• “Oops, I picked out myself.”


• “Oh, I had her name last year.”


• “She wrote down that her favorite snacks are Werther’s and peanut brittle. She’s so old she might not even make it until Christmas.”


• “It says that she collects Precious Moments. I’m against that on multiple levels.”


• “Um, I don’t know what to get for someone who already owns every sequined snowman sweater from HSN.”


• “Her classroom smells like cantaloupe. I’m allergic to cantaloupe.”


• “She’s so miserable that it would be like buying Christmas gifts for Hitler.”

Finally, I drew out the name of one of my third grade colleagues. It only took eight tries. Over the last week I’ve been picking up gifts for her. It’s just small gifts for the first four days like candy bars, potato chips, ornaments, peach candles. On Friday is when we reveal ourselves and present our large gift. (Wow, that last sentence could come across as highly inappropriate. Imagine that Christmas party.) Last night I snuck into school long enough to leave my first gift on her desk. I’ve gotta tell you that the school at night really freaks me out. It’s so dark and of course I had to walk all the way down to the end of the seemingly never-ending hallway to put down my first day gift of Cherry Coke and Dove chocolate, which I’m pretty sure is what one of the wise men brought for the baby Jesus. Before leaving, I coded out on the security system and waited to hear the signal to exit the building. While I was standing there waiting in the darkness, I heard the automatic toilet flush in the restroom right next to me. It frightened me so badly that I almost had to run home to change my pants. I don’t know why or how it happened, but I burst through the front doors and ran like a steroid-raging Marion Jones out to the car where Rachel was waiting. Perhaps it was God’s way of telling me a) not to interfere with the integrity of the Secret Santa drawing or b) not to link someone with Hitler.

Lost in translation

This week we read a story about a gorilla named Koko who is able to understand more than 1,000 sign language signs. Naturally this led into a discussion of sign language and we took a look at the sign language alphabet. Each of the students first spelled out their names using sign language. Then I passed out note cards with the names of different animals on them for each of them to sign for the class. The rest of the students, in turn, would try to figure out what animal it was. The students got zebra, alligator, and giraffe right off the bat. However, the fourth one seemed to baffle them and with good reason. I noticed his mistake and asked him to try it again because he had misspelled his word. Unfortunately once again, instead of “duck” he spelled “dick.” Common mistake. The funniest part about it was another boy raised his hand and said, "Um, Mr. Ritchason, I don't think that's an animal."

Diarrhea of the mouth

I just got back from taking Ella and Liam to the library to pick out some Christmas books. They love it there with the birds, the fish tank, and all of the toys and puzzles. It’s always quite the scene when it’s time to leave because Liam screams and cries all the way out of the door. Ella especially loves the puppet theater and every time she goes behind there and puts on a puppet show for us. Liam likes to go back there for one of two reasons. He either quietly knocks over all 38 puppets to the floor or sits in the corner and craps his pants. Today it was number two. Literally. When he emerged from behind the curtain it smelled like he had just finished an 18-hour shift with the sanitation department. I rounded both of them up along with the books and movies and headed for the counter with our library card. Of course, Liam started throwing a fit and I think deliberately arched his body so his butt came two inches away from my nose. Ella asked me why we couldn’t just take him to the restroom and change him. I hate trying to maneuver him on one of those fold-out contraptions on which you don’t know whose dirty butt cheeks were on there right before your child’s. As the librarian was scanning our items, Ella reminded me that “Daddy you went poop in there last time.” I couldn’t bear to make eye contact with the woman behind the counter, so I told her thank you with my head hung down in embarrassment as we headed home to change my son and beat my daughter. Just kidding.

The emasculation of Michael

Tonight while Rachel was at work and the kids were at my mom's house, I did some errands in Peoria. Before I left Rach called to ask if I would run past Michael's, the arts and crafts store, to pick up some beads she needed to make some bracelets. I hemmed and hawed for several moments but reluctantly agreed. Before hanging up, I made sure she gave me step-by-step directions of exactly how to maneuver through the store, capture the prized items, and get out without being spotted. Tonight as I got closer to the store I could feel my masculinity slowly being stripped away. By the time I parked and walked through the front door, I'm pretty sure that I was now the proud owner of a vagina. The sign on the door that advertised "Part time floral designer needed" didn't really help the situation. I retrieved the map that I had drawn from my pocket and made my way through the maze, like a soldier trying to avoid the land mines of detached Asian doll heads and styrofoam balls the size of a small African village. I've gotta admit that Rachel's directions were spot-on and I made it to the aisle of choice without any incidents. Unfortunately, there was a woman there looking in the exact same section that I needed to be. From a distance I saw the beads that Rach described, but I didn't want to reach in front of her like a fat girl trying to grab the last ladel-full of moo goo gai pan at the Chinese buffet. So I waited my turn and acted like I was looking at other things in the aisle. Wow, what impressive do-it-yourself gingerbread houses! This just made me look even more awkward and out of place. Finally, I leaned over and said one of the gayest things to ever come out of my mouth. "Excuse me ma'am. Could I just grab two bags of those sterling silver alphabet beads please?" I'm pretty sure at that moment my menstrual cycle kicked into gear. I hightailed it to the front of the store to discover seven people in line at the only register open. I towered over everyone else in line, kind of like that video they showed during the Olympics when Kobe Bryant was swarmed with Chinese fans that were as tall as his belt buckle. I began praying that the Apostolic Christian in front of me wouldn't strike up some conversation about crocheting or the Gaithers or riding around in horse-drawn buggies. (Oh wait, I think that last one is the Amish. My apologies.) The line was moving slower than the plot of The Love Guru so I found myself drumming on the boxes of beads with my fingers while singing along in my head to Celine Dion's version of "Felize Navidad" that was playing throughout the store. (Darn you, Michael's!) The next thing I knew one of the boxes had broke open and pieces of silver were dancing on the floor like a slot machine for tiny Hobbits. Of course everyone turned to look at me and I immediately knelt down on the floor to try to pick up all 100 pieces up. My cover was blown. I was so flustered in the moment that I blurted out that lame "I guess I didn't even know my own strength" line. The lady in line behind me was trying to be helpful and pick some of the beads up but all I felt like doing at that moment was knocking her over to make myself feel better. I then heard the cashier come over the intercom and it began to turn into one of those SNL skits where the person asks for a price check on some tampons. Come to think of it I was pretty close to needing one myself. In an instant a high school aged girl was there with a broom and a dust pan to clean up my mess. Someone else brought up another box of beads and thankfully it was my turn to check out. The smiling lady behind the register joked "I'll double-bag these for you so you don't lose any more" as she handed me a 40% off coupon for my next visit. I dropped it in the parking lot.