Still some moments

One of Lindsey's favorite things used to be having Stace put her to bed.  If Stace wasn't available when Lindsey was going to bed, then Lindsey always wanted to be assured that Stace would come in at some point later that night and give her a kiss.  Lindsey even has a hand-written sign hanging on the outside of her bedroom door saying, "Give me a kiss Mom from Lindsey."

Tonight, as Lindsey and I were walking into her bedroom to put her to bed, she pointed to that sign and in a flat voice said, "You can take that down now."  Ouch.

I think I shall never work again

I took a vacation day today just so I could get to all of the dumb little things that I can't do anymore because things are so busy, even on weekends.  I fired up the lawn mower to make sure it survived the winter; I started up our sprinklers; I did some yard work because the weather is going to turn bad again this week; I took care of some divorce documentation issues; I read the morning paper during the actual morning, which is a rarety for me; and I even laid down for twenty minutes this morning with no interruptions!

I've decided to quit my job and just live like this all the time.  I'm sure the finances will work out somehow.

Minnesota is good people

Recall a few years ago when some nice Swiss person went out of his or her way to return our kids' train passes to our house after I'd dropped them at the train station.  I had a similar Minnesota experience today.

I ran by the grocery store on my way to work for my weekly fruit run.  (I snack on apples and clementines at work.)  I used the self-service aisle.  I used my credit card and asked for an extra $20 back because I was low on cash.  Those machines have about twenty different orifices where things go in and out, and I've got a lot on my mind these days, so of course, I forgot to grab my $20.  I ran out of the store with my fruit.

An hour and a half later at work, I suddenly realized that I never grabbed my money.  I was lamenting the loss of my $20 to a co-worker, and she suggested that I call the store to see if someone had turned it in.  I hadn't even thought of doing that.  I was prepared to kiss my money goodbye.  I called the store, and sure enough, my $20 is waiting patiently for me at the customer service desk.

Oh, and by the way, I finally caught up on my newspaper backlog.  Whew!  I'm once again fully aware of what's happening in the world.  I'm taking tomorrow off just so I can get to some of the miscellaneous stuff I never get to, like changing the oil in the lawn mower and such.  Life is busy.

Ouch!

I was sitting with Lindsey at the kitchen table the other day.  She was looking at my face, and she reached out and touched my forehead.  "I like those," she said.  "How can I get those on my forehead?"  I asked her what she was talking about.  You can probably anticipate her answer:  "Those wrinkles!"

Savvy fourteen-year-olds

It turns out that fourteen-year-olds aren't as dumb as I thought they were, at least not in the ways I wish they were.  (They're still dumb in plenty of other ways.)  Tanner is driving me nuts with how much he understands about what's going on.  I keep reading about how I'm supposed to be really careful about maintaining strict parent-child boundaries throughout this whole process, but he's sometimes too aware of things for me to keep those boundaries intact.

He was looking at the bulletin as we were sitting in church on Sunday.  He elbowed me and pointed with excitement to a couple of items on the back of the bulletin.  "Dad!  Look!  There are some activities for singles that you should check out!"  Of all the conversations I've imagined, I have to say that I never envisioned the conversation in which my fourteen-year-old son would be trying to get me out of the house more often.  I quickly shushed him and diverted his attention to something else.  Sheesh!  The last thing I need is for Tanner to start planning my social life.

(For the record, I'm still married right now.  Even if that weren't the case, the entire Wood family has implemented a strict no-dating policy that won't be lifted until somewhere around the year 2065.  I figure the kids should be sufficiently mature to start dating by then.  I'm assuming I won't be in any condition to date at that point.)

Last night, Stace was at the house making dinner.  We needed to talk over a few issues about visitation and the divorce and such.  It was nothing contentious, but it wasn't a conversation for the kids.  Tanner was downstairs with us and wanted to play his PlayStation for a little while before dinner.  We told him that he could stay there but that he needed to put on his headphones, supposedly so we wouldn't hear the noise from his PlayStation.  He wasn't fooled.  He said that he knew we just wanted to talk about stuff that we didn't want him to hear.  He agreed, though, and he put on his headphones with a cocky smirk, pleased that he'd figured us out.

It's easy to keep Lindsey in her little bubble where she's not aware of any of this, but Tanner is too dang smart for his own good.  I may have to lock him in his room from time to time.

Still stacking up

I'm going to start keeping a running tally of how many days it's been since I had time to read the paper.  My stack of newspapers to read stretches back to Monday, so we're on day 4.  And, as everyone knows, you can't just throw them away; you have to read them all.  What if I miss something important?  No, I'll have to catch up at some point.  It's my duty to stay informed.

Sometimes, God mocks Minnesotans, and then he mocks them some more, and then he laughs at them, and then he decides that they still haven't had enough, so he then causes it to snow somewhere between three and nine inches at the beginning of May

Yup.  That's the forecast for tonight into tomorrow.  Somewhere between three and nine inches of snow.  At least I haven't yet had to pull out the lawn mower.

(I'm not planning to turn this into a weather blog, and it's very cliché for Minnesotans to tak about the weather, but come on!)