Bunny Punch Card

Jacob and I decided to sell the house. The plan to get out from under the oppressive mortgage and scheming for travel are a blog unto themselves (a blog that already has a name in my mind's eye - but we'll get to that later). At any rate - with the downsizing plan comes the necessary reduction in the menagerie. The first to go will be the bunnies.

I've been wanting to get rid of the bunnies for some time. They smell, aren't super fun and require twice a week litter box and newspaper changes. This is to say nothing of the grotesque task of keeping thing "hygienic" with animals that have long fur. However, despite bargaining, offers to trade and the occasional threat that he needs to help with the upkeep, Vaughn has been pretty resistant to the thought of getting rid of them even as he goes for long stretches of ignoring them. He understands now that they must go and there is no more bargaining to be had.

Still, it is very sad to have him clinging to them in a melodramatic way as if to suggest they were his only friends in this cold, cruel world. To make the transition easier, I came up with the idea of the Bunny Punch Card. I told Vaughn that the BPC would have 6 "coupons" for things he could cash in for. I suggested roller skating, a trip to the movies, $10 to spend at a store, a trip to the arcade, or extra nights in our bed (outside of the every-third-night he gets now). He thought that was a grand idea but then sat there quietly and couldn't come up with anything to actually put down on his card - which only made me sadder. Sten tried to helpfully suggest "more screen time" as a newly imposed limit on his screen time at his home had apparently made life more oppressive.

As I write this, Vaughn has cashed in two punches - both for an extra night in our bed - suggesting that we'll get through this transition with extra snuggling. As for the bunnies- they are still with us. Rabbits are a dime a dozen and my search for the right home (and not letting them loose on Sauvie Island for a half hour of freedom before the raptors get them as Michael tried to helpfully suggest) hasn't made it any easier. We had one potential home that fell through at the last minute. Vaughn joyfully reported that the bunnies weren't going to a new home just yet to Sten who astutely observed, "Well we'll just have to enjoy them while we have them."

Natural Consequences

Jacob and I haven't been very good about getting Vaughn to do his homework, which is to say we haven't been good at all. Every week the blue photocopied packets come home and collect around the house until they are eventually scooped up and recycled. There were a couple encouraging times when we were actually able to get him to sit down and hammer out a page or two or spend some time reading out loud without agonizing protest.

Unfortunately, it became really easy to justify this cycle of inactivity after a parent/teacher conference a year ago when, after confessing to his teacher that we were "really bad" about homework (as if she hadn't picked up on this) she assured us that as long as we were reading to him each day she thought we were fine. Great! We were achieving the bare minimum - we were okay with that. Sure, we routinely said that we needed to start a routine but that was about the only thing being done with any consistency.

This all changed yesterday when Vaughn sheepishly announced yesterday after dinner that he had seen the homework turn-in sheet and noticed he was the ONLY one not turning in his homework. It didn't take the teacher pointing it out or anyone saying anything - he just saw the sheet with checks next to everybody's name but his. We felt bad. We were bad parents. But something kinda cool came out of this - in a shining example of natural consequences Vaughn announced with resolve and determination that he would do his entire homework packed that night and every Monday night thereafter ("so we don't have to worry about it for the rest of the week"). Not only did he crank out the entire packet that night, he didn't even balk when it took him exactly up to bedtime with no time left to do anything else. He even got up the next morning to do all his Valentines so that he no longer needed the packet with the names and could turn in the packet.

I'd like to think that this was all some stellar parenting maneuver and not just the opposite but for now I think I'll just relax and enjoy this new found development.

What's That You Say?

Today Vaughn and Sten came racing upstairs to tell us that on their Nintendo DS a Pokemon Trainer had told them that you could have sex with a Pokemon. We asked him to repeat what he had heard. He was adamant - the game had told him that you could marry and have sex with a Pokemon. My first thought - logically we were dealing with a pedophile- a real internet predator. After Jacob convinced me his game wasn't linked this way I went to the next logical conclusion - a company prankster tapering with the programming - like one of those instances where someone makes a character in a Disney movie say a bad word. I have to say I even briefly imagined us on Good Morning America ("We pride ourselves on buying age appropriate products and the fact that someone could do this - well it just blew our mind!"). Jacob had Vaughn go back through the game to find the "trainer" in question so we could get to the bottom of this. Finally he shouted that he had found the trainer and - oh wait - it says you can have SIX Pokemon. Six. I guess that makes more sense than the scenarios I imagined.

Baby I'm a Rock Star

We have the American Idol game for the Wii. Essentially, this is karaoke at home (with the computer versions of the three American Idol judges) and I have to say it's a fun, albeit high-pressure way for Vaughn to practice reading. Plus, if you set it to "easy" it's pretty much a given that you're going to be rated Gold or Platinum (although I did manage to get my rendition of a Depeche Mode song ended early by the judges. Twice). This forgiving rating system is very affirming for Vaughn and he takes his high ratings as a sign that he must be a most excellent singer since "I barely even know the words!" He's even started to add bonus elements like "WOO!" and "Yeah!" in the beginning of songs when they are cuing up.

Unfortunately, in addition to a singing style that consists of mostly shouting the words, he also sticks to a very predictable line up that includes Life Is a Highway, 867-5309 (the "Jenny" song) and Eye of the Tiger. The crown jewel in the repertoire is Vacation by the Go-Gos. Vacation is sung over and over and other songs are really just filler in a long-running soundtrack of Vacation on repeat. I love the Go-Gos and at first I couldn't have been more happy with this but now it's a little maddening. Still, it's all pretty adorable and I really wish he'd let me videotape him more. All videos have to be taken very surreptitiously.

Even the Wii has apparently had enough of Vacation as Vaughn finished up the latest round to have a message appear that said, "Try a new song! Maybe you'll find a new favorite!"

**Update: The favorite song has switched now to Eye of the Tiger and has been memorized so that it can be sung outside of playing Wii. He will sing it with or without the Survivor video playing in the background. One morning I think we heard it ten times before we left for school. Whenever my brain is having "quiet time" - Eye of the Tiger is there.

Blowin in the Wind

Vaughn loves playing "Monster" with Jacob. This game is nothing more than them beating each other with couch pillows which allows them to act stereotypically male and I get to come around behind like the stereotypical female and say things like, "Watch the vase!" and "Can you please put the couch back together when you are done?"

At any rate, Monster also involves coming up with their WWF-style names. Sten was spending the night tonight and Vaughn explained that in the game his name was typically "Rock Baby" or "Muscles" but that Sten could be anything - even Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan? In the end, in true Vaughn and Sten fashion, they settled on Muscles and Muscles 2.

Cocoon

Times are not easy on one foot. I am terribly bored and feel very restless and isolated. I'm frustrated that I can't be out enjoying this unseasonably dry weather (which, I guess I should be thankful for since when it starts raining I'll be hauling myself around with a plastic bag attached by rubber bands over my foot). It has made me anxious and suddenly everything that is out of place in our house seems to be mocking me. Consequently I'm overdoing it and my foot hurts and swells a little more than it should.

Yesterday Jacob took me to Powell's to get a new book since the one I had gotten just before the surgery was boring. Powell's was crowded and it filled me with great joy to watch people jump to get out of my way and apologize unnecessarily. It reminded me of being very pregnant but better because people cannot always be counted on to move out of the way of the very pregnant (probably because they sense our smugness). Anyway- all was well until I started to feel nauseous from standing so long and felt an urgent need to be done and out of there. We were on our way out when Jacob stopped to talk to someone he knew working there. Standing behind him, I gave him the "can we please go" sign by nudging him with the bottom of my crutch on his leg. I would have done the same thing with a discrete foot nudge had I had the ability to nudge with my foot. Well, suffice it to say that being nudged with inanimate objects seems to fall in a different category - one that some may categorize as "rude" - but we're beyond that now.

Last night I hopped in the middle of the night into the bathroom on my one good foot only to hop into a puddle of pee (cat? dog?) on the bathroom floor. Like I said- life on one foot has not been easy.

The picture is a fantasy I had of cocooning until my foot heals. I also seem to be cold all the time from lack of activity.

A Bloody Mess

Today is the day of my second foot surgery and tensions are high. Partly because I can't eat or drink anything and partly because Jacob keeps tackling me in an effort to get me to relax (which seems to have the opposite effect). Mostly though, I'm worried because I broke the rules and took Ibuprofen within the last week. Ibuprofen has the potential to act as a blood thinner and so you aren't supposed to take it for a full week before any surgery. Last week I had a cold and my head hurt so I broke down and maybe four or six over the course of two days. This wouldn't concern me but on Saturday (Sunday?) I had a headache again and broke down and took two more. I don't want to fess up because I'm afraid they'll postpone the actual surgery regardless of what the actual risk is. This morning I got up at 7 am to try and do a little on-line research via Yahoo Answers - which naturally can be trusted since anyone can log on and throw their own two cents in the arena of medical advice. I'm not afraid I'll die - just that it will be a bloody mess and obvious that I lied. Jacob thinks all will be fine since, as he reminded me, I did the exact same thing last time and had all the same concerns. So much from learning from your mistakes.

**Update: I'm out of surgery and everything went fine. Mostly I'm just cranky not from pain but from inconvenience. I get a lot of satisfaction from "kicking" at things with my crutches - I imagine old people with canes find this very satisfying too.

**Chinese Hieroglyphics on my foot instruct the doctor on which foot to cut up.