Results: Inconclusive

Ah, well, it was a good thought, anyway.  Instead of eating well and eating lots to drive my kids to bed earlier, Charles had a candy cane after school yesterday and then refused dinner until he’d been put to bed with no stories.  Then he marched himself back downstairs, apologized for his rude behavior in refusing food and grumping at the table, and ate the whole thing.  It’s not like I cook crap, so I don’t know what his deal is.  More stubbornness.  By that time, his dinner was his bedtime snack, so we didn’t do that for him, either.  But he did stay in bed after lights-out and slept until 5:45 am, so there’s that.

 

Jamie, on the other hand, had a bedtime snack and slept until 5:30 am.  That was when Tony left for basketball, so that’s when I got up.  I’m tired, but the kids aren’t, so we’ll call it a win.  I still think I need to force them to eat more.  If I don’t, they just forget about it and play.

 

Tony is like this.  When we first started dating, he told me he consistently forgot to eat lunch.  And sometimes dinner.  And breakfast was often just a donut and coffee.  I did not understand.  I’m pretty sure that when he related this to me, I was nonplussed and stood there with one of those slack-jawed looks on my face, like I just couldn’t process the information.  I still don’t get it – how does one FORGET to eat?  I rarely skip meals; my body can’t handle it.  I turn into megabitch without food and it’s not pretty.  So maybe the kids take after Tony?  Who knew that in addition to wiping butts, doing laundry, cleaning everything, and actually making the food, I would have to coerce my children into eating enough of it?

 

I’ll gladly take on the role of food-pusher if it results in happy children (this is after two toaster waffles each, a bowl of yogurt each, a glass of milk each, and an extra bowl of cereal for Charles this morning):

 

Post-shower, because they both shower with me now (Tony is routinely gone in the morning).  I am now skilled at acrobatic leg-shaving while children drive trucks and play with bath toys under me.

 

Putting on his own clothes – usually he whines for me to “help” him, not that he needs it.  He did need help, however, getting the shirt over his head so that it would not “mess up his Dash hair.”  One of his birthday gifts was the movie The Incredibles and now he constantly puts water on his hair so he can spike it up like Dash.

 

Kid loves that hat.

 

*****

So get this: I have been WRONG for four years.  I have always thought that the possessive of Charles was Charles’ and the possessive of James was James’, but now I am told that, regardless of the ending of the name in question, it is always apostrophe s, like Charles’s mask and James’s toy.  That sounds so clunky, you know?  But, being a stickler for grammar and punctuation in most areas of my life, I’ll try to mend my ways here.  I don’t imagine it will be an easy feat, however.  Maybe when I need to use a possessive form of their names I’ll go with their nicknames: Charlie’s nose, Jamie’s truck.  Thoughts from my nerdy linguistics friends?