Report Cards, Braces, and Medical Jargon.............

(Editor's Note: I meant to post this last week, but never got around to it. My parents came in town, then had sick kids, then Halloween, then had more sick kids. I'll post some Halloween pics later this week.)



I am officially the John Kerry of progress reports. Yes, I did vote against the progress reports after I voted against them. You see, the entire time I was in school, I HATED interim grades, or progress reports, or whatever you want to call them. I absolutely hated them. They were pointless. Because I was notorious for slacking off for the first half of the nine weeks, then barely squeaking out A's on my report cards. So every nine weeks when it came time for interim reports, I'd come home with nothing but bad grades and yabuts. Don't know what yabuts are? Then you must not have school age children. The yabut is how every kid starts off any response. And not just about school, kids use the yabut for questions pertaining to just about anything:

"You have a D in Spanish?"
"Yabut the teacher said that if I do my extra credit, I can pull it up to an A."

"Didn't I ask you to clean your room?"
"Yabut I didn't know you meant right now."

"Did you just stab your sister with an ice pick?"
"Yabut she was making faces at me."

So anyway, I'd come home with my progress report, my parents would yell at me, threaten me, take things away, things like that. Then a month later I'd come home with my report card full of A's, and my dad would look at it, obviously expecting something bad, stare at it silently for about 5 minutes too long, take his deep slow angry breath and say, "What's with the 93 in Social Studies? You gonna pull that up?"

"But dad, a 93 is an A!"

"Yeah, but a low A. Don't be a slacker, son. You're better than that."

And then I'd think, 'Wow. He's crazy.' For the record, I still think he's crazy, but now he's just kind of 'quirky' crazy. I used to think he was like, 'Gary Busey' crazy. Like 'I'm gonna cut your tattoos off in the middle of the night with a fillet knife' crazy.

But now, however many years later, I've completely flip-flopped on my progress reports stance. I think they're great. I think they should send them home every week. (Which is actually already happening in middle school because their grades are being posted online. That's reason number 7 of why I would hate to be in school right now, right behind having to re-learn the Dewey Decimal System. Wait, what? They don't have to know the freakin Dewey Decimal System?! Well then how do they check books out of the library? What a crock!) When the kids came home with their crappy progress reports (You can read about it here), we were able punish them and get them to clean their rooms, and do all of their homework, and eat all of their dinner, and etc, etc, etc. It was kind of nice. And I didn't have too much reason to believe that their report cards would be much different.

Tuesday morning, the day they were getting their report cards, Tori tried to convince me that it was okay for her to get C's. She said that all of her friends can get C's, and because C stands for average, and she's just an average student. And that Drew Brees is an average quarterback. (Alright, she didn't say that about Drew Brees, but what she said was still just as ridiculous.) So I explained to her that if she is, in fact, average; then when she gets to high school she would have to get an average job to pay for her average car to go along with all of the other average student friends. She quickly realized my point and conceded to being well above average. Does anyone want a 12 year old?

Well I was pleasantly surprised when I picked her up that afternoon, and she showed me a report card with mostly A's and a few high B's splattered around. She said that she knew the whole time what her grades were going to be, but she just wanted to see what I'd say if she came home with C's. Seriously, do you want a 12 year old? (Just kidding, she just got braces this week, so I'm going to start getting her back by eating lots of candy around her. And maybe sunflower seeds. That'll show her.)

That's a report card smile

Alright, so we got one kid's grades in the books, but Racheal was at home with the other kids when they got off the bus that day. And when I got home, I was half expecting to walk into a Gitmo type atmosphere. But it was quite the pleasant surprise to see their happy little faces when I walked in. Scarlett got mostly 3's with a couple of 2's (3's mean she's beyond a 2nd grade level, 2's mean she's at a 2nd grade level), Cole brought up his grades to all A's and B's, and Gavin was a couple of points away from straight A's. The only 2 B's that he got were a 91 and a 92. I mean, this could quite possibly be the biggest one year turn around ever. Bigger than last year's Miami Dolphins. Last year, Gavin didn't feel comfortable reading ANYTHING. He hated it. It was like pulling teeth. (Which he coincidentally had to have done the other day, but I digress). But this is how far he's come: The other night, I was sitting on the couch studying my MCAT flashcards (Oh, by the way, I'm studying to become a doctor), and Gavin comes over and sits down next to me to see what I was doing. So I explained to him how I was studying, and he asked if he could help. So he started reading the flashcards to me, and pronouncing words like 'mitochondrial membrane' and 'homologous chromosomes' and stuff like that. It was really cool. If this were baseball, people would start making HGH and PED innuendos.

So there you go. The kids get to go trick or treating. And I get to keep using phrases like, "A 91? C'mon, you can do better than that!" and "Well your room isn't going to clean itself, now is it?" and "Next time you leave the light on, I'm going to make you pay the light bill" (FYI, Before having kids, I had never referred to our electric bill as a 'light bill', but this is one of those little things that you do that you said you would never do). It's all part of my slow painful metamorphosis into my parents.

Ohmmmmmmmmmmm.....Ohhhmmmmmmmmmmm............

Lance Armstrong won 7 Tour de Frances (Plural? Tours de France? Tour des Frances? Tour de Franci? Who cares. Let the French complain, "Ohh, stoopid Amedicans. Caant even pwonounce ouwr pwurals. Dey aw soo stoopid. Wif zer beleafz dat dey aw zo vedy much beder zan uus!") with only 1 testicle, but he had new blood each time he did it. Roger Clemons and Barry Bonds broke all kinds of records, but they had steroids to help them out. NASCAR drivers can go over 200 mph, but they have cars helping them out. (Okay, the cars are doing ALL of the work, so maybe that's a bad example). But the point is, all of these great accomplishments were achieved with some degree of cheating involved. I bring this up because I may or may not be in the middle of pulling off the greatest achievement of my lifetime. I think this might be my white whale. My swan song. And it's taking every ounce of self control to accomplish it without cheating. It would be so much easier to just cheat and get it over with. But I'm staying strong. Even if it is going to cost me my sanity. Or Racheal's sanity. Or everyone in the house's sanity.

Of course, if you've read this blog at all, you could have guessed that I'm talking about doing a social studies project with Cole. He has a project to do on Leif Ericson (Spelling? Leif Ericson? Leif Ericcson? Leif Erikson? Eh, who cares. Let Sven and the Nordiques complain, "Yaa, fer sure. Oudin pronuncin Leif Ericson wrongin. Nyurgen Flurgen.") He's had over a month to do it, it's due this Friday, and we've spent 742 hours on it. That may be an exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure it isn't. Anyway, he couldn't have picked an easier explorer? Columbus maybe? Magellan? That guy from Man vs. Wild? I mean, Columbus has got a whole freakin day! There ain't no frazzlin Leif Erikson day, I'll tell you that. But that's beside the point. I honestly think I could've gotten the stupid cat to do this project faster than Cole. Or even our new pet spider.

I should get Racheal and Keith to figure out
if this spider can hold a pencil

It's gotten to the point where it is taking Cole longer to do this report, than it took freakin Leif Ericcson to discover Newfoundland. I probably could've taken Cole to Norway, shown him Ericson's house, retraced Leif Ericsson's steps, and embarked on a Norwegian cruise by now. Can you tell how frustrated I am? Maybe this will explain the frustration a little more.

Do you ever go pump your gas? But maybe you want to clean out your car a little while the gas is pumping? So you rig your gas cap in the handle to keep pumping gas while you're cleaning out your car? But as soon as you walk away, the pump somehow stops pumping? So you've got to keep going back to set up the gas cap back in the handle? And it works for a second? But every time you walk away, it stops again, and it becomes completely useless? Well magnify that frustration by about 7 katrillion, and that's what you get when you help Cole do a project.

If it were up to Leif Ericson to get Cole to do this report; and he knew back then how hard it was going to be to get this done, I'm pretty sure he would've said, "Ehh. Nevermind. Let someone else go out there and discover the new land. It's pretty cold out there anyway."

And I could've finished the report for him a few thousand times by now, but I'm not going to cheapen this moment. I'm not going to set myself up for a situation a few years from now when the news media gets wind of this, and my social study project integrity is questioned. That would be like Lief Ericson using Jay-Z's yacht to travel to Norway.

During the course of working on this project, I think he's spent a total of 37 hours looking for a pencil, sharpening his pencil, and asking questions about longitude. I mean, this kid is a stall genius. I haven't seen stall techniques this amazing since I had to go number 2 in a Mardi Gras port-o-john. And I'm getting so frustrated that, in order to calm myself down, I'm imagining myself back to that peaceful time. Right there in that tiny little square of piled up poop. Ahhh, things were so much simpler then.

On another completely random note: This morning on my way to work, I saw a halfway homeless man (Halfway homeless is a technical term describing someone who is most likely homeless, but could just be a crackhead) limping on the side of the road wearing a Reggie Bush jersey. Is it a pretty good indicator that your 2nd overall pick is a bust when you immediately expect the homeless man to stop walking forward, take a few steps back, dance around a little bit, and then fall down in traffic? And another question: How did he come about getting the Reggie Bush jersey? Did some fed up, disgruntled Saints fan throw it in the trash? Or was this guy a productive member of society in 2005, and the Reggie Bush jersey purchase served as a catalyst for a downward spiral series of really, really bad decisions? I would've stopped to ask him, but I was scared that my expectations of his answer were probably a little too high.

The Nausea From Spinning Around in Giant Strawberries
Ain't Got Nothin on The Pain of Leif Ericson

Who's on first.......

One of the disadvantages of having a 'blended' family, (Perhaps blended isn't a strong enough word. Maybe pureed? liquefied? chopped? diced? scattered? smothered? Oh wait, that's WaffleHouse Hashbrowns. Nevermind...) is that no one knows how to refer to anyone else. Especially when we're in a car. I'm not sure what we were talking about, but we had this conversation the other day:

Me: No. Your mom said no.

Scarlett: My mom?

Gavin: My mom?

Me: Yes, your mom. No, not you, Scarlett.

Cole: Wait, were you talking to me?

Me: No, your sister.

Gavin: My sister.

Me: No, not your sister.

Scarlett: I know. Because I don't have a sister.

Me: I know that. I was talking to Cole.

Cole: Huh?

Scarlett: He was talking to you.

Cole: Who was?

Scarlett: Daddy.

Cole: Who's daddy? Gavin's daddy?

And around and around we went. I couldn't get them to school fast enough. It was like a really bad episode of Abbott and Costello, mixed with an episode of The Three Stooges. Cole and Gavin may have even been doing the eye-poking gag. Who knows?

On another note; I miss Keith. (Keith went back to Louisiana for a couple of weeks to work a concert festival.) I really miss Keith. Part of the reason that I miss him is based on how much he helps us out, how much we get to hang out, and how we get to watch retarded shows like 'The Ruins' together. But the majority of the reason that I miss him is because Racheal misses him. You see, Racheal constantly needs a project to work on. I mean, always. When she doesn't have anything to do, I come home to rooms without carpet. Or new paint on the walls (I should say part of the walls. She starts it so that I'll have to finish it). Or new appliances that need to be installed. Or plants that have to be planted (like this time or even this one). And Keith provided me with a bit of a buffer from these projects. And Keith really is the perfect buffer. He's about as 'go with the flow' as Racheal is 'I'll determine the flow'. And so he goes along with all of her kakamamie (love that word) schemes and projects. Here's an example. Last week, Keith found a huge spider spinning a giant web in our yard. We all went out and looked at the spider, 'Wow. That's a big spider.' And that was that. But not for Racheal and Keith. Racheal had to know what type of spider it was, where it came from, what its name was, what its kids names were, what its credit score was, etc, etc. And the really crazy part is: They spent the next 4 hours youtubing and wiki-ing lawn spiders! Lawn spiders?

And just because that A-Hole went home and they weren't able to take their weekly trip to the children's museum to take pictures like this,


I was stuck replacing our mailbox, putting up shelves in our closet, hanging pictures in the kitchen, and fixing our dishwasher again. And that was just yesterday! I'd like to say that Keith is dead to me, but I need my buffer back.

Calm Before The Storm?

Alright. I'm officially scared. This really makes me nervous. I really don't even want to write about it, but I'm afraid that I'm not going to make the blog quota that my editor (a.k.a. my mom) has set for me. But writing about this right now is kind of like talking about a perfect game in the 5th inning. And this woefully makes me feel like Joe Buck (Minus the Miller Lites and the vasectomy.) And you know why I'm getting that jinxing feeling? Why I'm so nervous? Because nothing's happening. I have absolutely nothing to write about. Jaxon hasn't pooped in anything other than a toilet for almost a week. Cole is going on eleven consecutive 'good days/great days' from his teacher. Nobody's grounded. Grades are improving. Their rooms are relatively clean. Altogether, the kids folded about 17 loads of laundry yesterday.....and didn't complain. A small part of me was a slightly disappointed that they didn't complain, because I had a bunch of witty retorts lined up for their bitchin. (Just kidding. About being disappointed. Not about having the retorts lined up.)

So here are a couple of funny little stories about everyone. (Note: I put headers on top of each story to let you know who that particular story involves. Just in case you have a favorite character and want to skip ahead.)

Jaxon
Like I said, Jaxon has been relatively good lately (emphasis on the word relatively), so I took him to the park. Here's some video.



Racheal and Keith
Keith's laid-backness finally came back to to bite him in the Kardashian. It's not his fault, really. It could've happened to anyone. Last week he was just about to go run some errands, when Rach came in and said, "Hey, I've got some errands to run too. I just have to go to the store. We should go together." Now at this point, Keith SHOULD have lit himself on fire and jumped out of the nearest window. I mean, let's pretend for a minute that Keith had the wherewithal to say no. And let's say that Racheal's errands involved simply going to the grocery for bread. And that Keith's errands involved going to the Bermuda Triangle to cure cancer. I would bet my life that Keith would come back first. So I could completely understood the look on Keith's face when he got home that night after being gone for approximately 9.5 hours. His look was a mixture of fatigue and confusion. Like he had been trying to box a caffeinated monkey for 9 hours. He started to tell me where he had been, but I already knew. He had been everywhere, yet gone nowhere. He had shopped for everything, but purchased none of his intended items. Essentially, he was in the exact same place as where he started. About ten minutes after he got home, and once I stopped laughing at him, I realized that Racheal had not come inside yet, "Where's Rach?"

"Oh, she just dropped me and Jaxon off back here. She had to go to the store. We never actually made it there." My wife, ladies and gentleman.

Tori
That same night, I had to bring Tori to softball practice. But before I did that, I had to figure out what we were going to have for dinner. Now that might sound like an easy task for most people, but you've obviously never been to our house. You see, I live with a swarm of locusts that would chew the sheetrock right off the walls if they didn't have so much paint on them. (Seriously, we've painted our house so many times, I'm worried about the dwindling square footage in the house. It's gonna kill our property value. Oh by the way, Rach wants to paint again. The whole house.) We go to the grocery store about 4 times a week, but it's never enough. And if you try to tell me that I should go to Sam's Club, I'll punch you in the face. Because it doesn't matter how much food we have in the house; no matter what, it'll be gone in two days. So saving 13 cents by buying a gallon of mayonnaise is not going to help, because that would just cause the kids to eat mayonnaise sandwiches for 37 hours straight until it was gone. I don't think we've ever had a bag of chips even make it to the pantry. We've even tried buying healthy stuff like fruits and vegetables, but they eat that too. A friend of mine gave me 8 huge boxes of family sized multi-grain cheerios because they made his pregnant wife sick, and my kids devoured them in about a week. Anyway, that night I managed to find 5 lbs of ground meat, taco seasoning, and a stack of small tortillas - Gracias a Dios por los Tacos!! (That's how you say 'Thank God for tacos' in Puerto Rican)

Anyway, by the time Tori got home from practice, the locusts had ravaged through all of the tacos. I didn't even realize it was happening. I honestly didn't know they were all gone until Tori came and sat next to me on the couch. And I use the phrase 'sat next to me on the couch' a lot like you would say 'Maine sat next to California on the US map'. Arms folded, staring straight ahead, looking like she was trying to make the TV explode with her eyeballs. So I asked, "Did you get something to eat?" And then it happened. She was taken over by a demon. No, really. It was as if Linda Blair herself were sitting across from me on the couch. Her head spun around 360 degrees and her eyes started glowing red. The only thing missing was projectile vomiting pea soup, and Uncle Keith throwing water on her, "The power of Christ compels you! The power of Christ compels you!"

Tori: No! I didn't get anything to eat! There's no more tacos left! You know how much I like tacos! And you didn't even save me any! Uggghhhhh! Now there's nothing to eat!

Me: I'm sorry. I forgot, um -- (Yeah, maybe I shouldn't tell the lunatic preteen that I forgot that she didn't eat.) I, um, there's none left? Why don't you make yourself a sandwich or something?

Tori: I don't want a stupid sandwich! That's all we ever eat! Sandwiches! I hate stupid sandwiches! What'd we eat last night?! Sandwiches!

Me: Umm, Actually, it was leftover chicken.

Tori: What'd we eat the night before?! Sandwiches!

Me: Umm, yeah, that was sandwiches. But the night before that was meatloaf!

I really think that if she had a knife, she would have stabbed me in the neck when I suggested that she make a sandwich. But then five minutes later she was back to being our normal fun, smiling Tori. Ca-Razy. Man, I can't wait for her teenage years. I'm looking forward to it about as much as my first prostate exam.

Scarlett
Friday night, Scarlett lost another tooth. Normally, Scarlett will tell you that she has a loose tooth for three solid months before she'll ever let you near it, but this time, she just pulled it out. Surprised the hell out of us. Anyway, the Tooth Fairy in our house is in desperate need of an organizer. Our kids have got to wonder how the Tooth Fairy has been able to keep a job this long with all of her missed appointments. It's terrible, I know. I'm thinking of farming out Tooth Fairy duties to Uncle Keith. Is that allowed? That night, Scarlett fell asleep in our bed watching TV. Later, when we were going to sleep, I carried her back into her bed. Saturday morning at about 7, Scarlett came into our room, crying like someone just told her they didn't like her shoes. Through her intermittent sobs, I was able to decipher that she was mad at me because I moved her while she was sleeping, and that the Tooth Fairy didn't know where she was, and that she'd never be able to get her money. She told me that she put the tooth under the pillow that she had been sleeping on in our room (Racheal's pillow). So I go back into our room, frantically looking for the tooth, bouncing Racheal's sleeping head around the pillow like Weekend At Bernie's 3. I found nothing. After ensuring Scarlett that we'd find it, and the Tooth Fairy would be back tomorrow, she mentioned that the tooth was IN the pillow case. So I snuck back upstairs, grabbed the tooth from inside Bernie's pillow, and inserted a five dollar bill. A little while later, I told Scarlett that she should double check the pillowcase, because maybe the Tooth Fairy put it IN the pillowcase. Sure enough, she came back down with the money, and a snarky look on her face. So then I had to listen to 15 minutes of 'I told you so's and 'I can't believe you didn't know where it was's from a 7 year old, while I made excuses like, "Well I guess she must've taken the tooth before I moved you." Man, I can't wait until she's a teenager.

Cole and Gavin
I took the boys to the gym with me yesterday so they could play basketball while I worked out. I had planned on just working out, but we ended up playing 1 on 2 basketball for almost an hour. It was the first time that I was able to bring just Cole and Gavin, and didn't have to worry about them fighting with Scarlett, or have to deal with Jaxon eating the basketballs. And coincidentally, it was the first time we were able to play a semi-real game of basketball. I was showing them how to run a trap, how to play defense, how to make the defense guard you before you pass the ball, how to take open shots, etc, etc. And they were listening to everything. And it wasn't just Gavin. Because Gavin would run himself into a brick wall for 2 straight hours if you told him to. But Cole was listening too. At one point, I had a rough time getting around a pair of 9 year olds. I mean, I still whooped up on them. I haven't fallen off THAT far. But they made me work for it. I definitely need to find a way to get the two of them on their own more often.

Maxine
Yesterday in church, we sat behind a bunch of aggravating, disrespectful teenagers. They were being typical teenagers; snapping each other's bra straps, texting, talking, slapping each other. Just being outright annoying. And they just so happened to be sitting directly in front of Maxine. And if you know Maxine, you know that she's got the same amount of patience as Michael Jackson's doctor. At one point, one of the teenage boys leaned back to stretch, and in one quick motion, Maxine slapped the kid's hands and apologized for it all at the same time. It was quite impressive, really. We eventually had to make her move seats so we didn't get ourselves kicked out of church. But then she was fine five minutes later, back to being sweet Maxine. Man, I'm glad I wasn't around when she was a teenager.

Familiar Topics: Behavior and Poop........

I've mentioned before that Rach is not exactly Bill Gates when it comes to tech savvyness. In fact, she's the anti-Bill Gates. Would Bill Gates repeatedly email you files to 'pdf', even though he has adobe pdf on his computer? Would Bill Gates try to get files off of his dead hard drive by randomly shoving cables into every open slot on his computer? (Seriously, she tried plugging anything that had a cord into her laptop. Even a hairdryer.) Would Bill Gates take video of his husband and son playing on a playground while holding the camera sideways? Ummmm. No. Because I'm pretty sure he doesn't have a husband. And maybe some other reasons. So you'll have to turn your monitors sideways to view these videos. (Just kidding, mom. Please don't call your IT guy, Kenny, to come turn your monitor sideways. Just tilt your head.)

Climbed up the ladder thingie fairly easy

This was WAY more uncomfortable than it looks



BEHAVIOR

So yesterday when I picked up Jaxon from school, I walked in and found Jax playing with a toy cash register. There were three kids crowded around him, lurking like vultures, waiting for him to put the toy down. I'm not exactly Nostradamus, but I could predict that this was not going to end well. And normally I approach picking Jaxon up with the sense of urgency of a bank robber. I try to be as nice as I can to the ladies working in there, but my internal clock is ticking the entire time. I've got to get out of there in less than two minutes. If I'm running low on time, screw it; I'm not going into the vault to get his blanket. So when I walked in there, and saw the palpable tension that the toy cash register was creating, I knew I had to make a quick exit.

2:00 - Notice the toy cash register situation while I'm signing the sign out sheet.

1:46 - Hurry over to Jaxon's cubby to get his things.

1:39 - Get stopped on my way to the cubby by random snot-nosed kids wanting to either high five or hug my leg.

1:17 - Shove other kids out of the way to pick up Ashley and give her hugs and kisses. (At some point, Ashley may have to be a character witness in one of Jax's trials. Have to do whatever it takes to keep her on our side.)

0:53 - Fight back tears of joy when I see that Jaxon got all smiley faces on his report for the first time ever. (Begin celebratory daydream of Jax and I happily running towards each other in slow motion with 'Chariots of Fire' background music......)

0:42 - Snap out of daydream and pick up the rest of Jax's stuff.

0:36 - Teacher tells me that Jax was well-behaved all day. I responded with, "I see that. This is the first day he's gotten all smiley faces." And then she said, "Oh....Really?" But she said it in the same friendly yet sarcastic way that you would respond to a six year old that just told you that the earth was round. "Oh....Really? I never would've guessed that!"

0:21 - "Alright Jax, you ready?" (I can see the vultures getting antsy. They start getting uncomfortably close to him.) "No. I playin with money."

0:13 - "You playin? Okay, but we have to go. Why don't you let one of these vult-- kids play with the cash register?" (Now there's a crazed look in some of the vultures' eyes. Like ravenous hungry birds.) "No. I playin."

0:06 - "Okay, let's go." (I scoop him up out of his seat just as one of the vultures grabs the cash register, and run through the door just in time.)

Phew! That one was close. As soon as I got Jax in the truck, I called Rach to tell her the great news.

Me: It Happened!! It Really Happened!! He got all Happy Faces!!

Rach: Yay! That's Awesome!! Well, I didn't have to work until late today, so I didn't drop him off until about noon.

Me: Oh.....And it says here that he slept from 12:30 until 2:00.

Rach: And it's only 4:00 right now.

Me: Sooooo.....what you're saying is that he was only there for about 2 hours?

Both of us: Ehh, screw it. We'll take it!



POOP

Jaxon's been doing a pretty good job of going to the bathroom by himself lately. Sure, we've had some minor setbacks, but for the most part he can take his pants off, get on the toilet, do his business, get off the toilet, and put his pants back on. Although his underwear goes back on backwards more times than not. The one thing that he does not do, though, is ask for someone to help him wipe his butt. So a few days ago, Keith was checking on him a couple of minutes after we sent him to the bathroom. Keith called me over and said, "Hey, is this normal?" I walk in to find Jaxon standing in the tub, with his butt cheeks pressed against the faucet with the water on. "I clean butt, Daddy. Look, Daddy, I clean butt. I clean butt." No, that's not normal, but very creative. He invented the redneck baby bidet.

Dr. Jaxon and Mr. Hyde........

I think this time he got put away
for wearing a PUMA shirt......
And rightfully so, I guess

I think I've mentioned before that the most nerve wracking 2 minutes of my day are the walk from my truck to Jaxon's classroom. I'm always half expecting to walk in and see him in a straight jacket, strapped to a moving dolly, wearing a weird looking face mask with bars on the mouth, creepily saying, "Hello Clar--I mean, Daddy, I've been expecting you." Everyday, thoughts like that go through my head. Well, everyday but yesterday. Because yesterday, when I pulled up, I noticed Jaxon walking across the parking lot with the 1 year olds. At his school, anytime the teacher walks the class anywhere, she walks backwards while holding onto a rope that has a bunch of rings attached to it, and each kid holds onto their own ring. Apparently, this is common practice, but something that I've never personally seen. (This is not too big of a surprise. There are lots of things that are common practice but that I've never personally seen. Like living in a house with less than 7 people. I'm sure it happens pretty often, but I've never seen it. Or like being able to make dinner with only 1 box of macaroni, and less than 2 lbs of chicken. Fairly common, just never seen it.) Anyway, it was strange seeing Jaxon, holding onto the first ring, walking with the 1 year olds. He's never with the 1 year olds. When I walked up, I could tell he was excited to see me, but he wouldn't let go of his ring. He knew he wasn't supposed to. The teacher told me that Jaxon wanted to go for a walk with them, and asked if he could help her take the 'babies' for a walk. Then he looked at me and said, "Walk with us, Daddy? Wanna help babies walk?" "Of course, buddy. I'll help the babies walk." So we continue on the slllloooooooowwww journey back to the classroom. As we're walking, one of the babies tripped and fell. The teacher grabbed her really quick, but asked Jaxon to lead the rest of the kids back to the classroom, and told the little kids, "Okay, now everybody follow Jaxon." So Jax turns around and starts walking backwards like the teacher was. When we got to the door, he even held the door open as the little babies walked through it. You could tell that he knew he was in charge, and he seemed so completely conscious of their well-being. It was the sweetest thing I've ever seen. And they must've been doing some sort of construction in the building, because my eyes started to get watery. Or maybe it was allergies. Or someone was peeling an onion. Or pink eye. In both eyes. After seeing all of this, I started to feel guilty for ever calling him a demon, and making jokes about his impending prison term. But THEN I walked into his classroom. When I picked up the clipboard to sign him out, I noticed a folded up green piece of paper with the word 'King' written on it. Oh boy. I've seen these before. They always put the bad notes on green paper. I guess it's better than a pink slip.....for now. So I open up the green piece of paper and scan through the 'Jaxon bit a kid' note, but I was distracted by what I saw underneath the green slip. Another green slip that had 'King' written on it. Seriously? Crap! So I open that one up, 'Jaxon bit and punched anoth---' but then get distracted by yet another green slip underneath IT. 'King'. You gotta be kidding me? So I shoot an embarrassed glance over at the teacher, who was quietly waiting for me to look over at her. Immediately, my nervous retardedness took over, (I have a tendency to say retarded things when I get nervous. I just hope I didn't pass this trait down.)

Me: So are these just backdated from the past few months? or.........um......?--

Teacher: Nope. Those are all three from today--

Me: But just three copies of the same incident? or.........um.....?

Teacher: Nope. Three separate incidents.

Me: Oh, right. Ummmmm. I uhhhhh. Sorry.......I uhhhhh.......we don't.....ummmmm.......condone.....or.....let......that's ummm.......Sorry again. Jaxon! Let's go, bud!

Whenever this happens, and the teacher has to tell me about some fight that Jaxon got into, I feel like she's waiting for me to confess that we're a family full of biters or something. It's as if she thinks that deep down I know why Jaxon is always getting in trouble, but I'm just not telling her. Like we're teaching him Jiu Jitsu at home, preparing him for the octogon. Or maybe she thinks that he's learning that behavior from home, and I'm a wife-beater. (But she's got that all wrong. I WEAR wife-beaters. I'm not A wife-beater. There's a difference. Besides, anyone who knows Rach and I's relationship knows that I would be the one on the receiving end of any domestic beatings) Or maybe she, like Racheal, thinks I look like someone who needs to be arrested.

This actually happened, by the way. We went through a DUI checkpoint one night on our way home from the beach. I had Keith, Gavin, and Cole in my car, and Rach was in front of me with the rest of the kids in her car. Of course, I got stopped because I somehow retardedly left my license at home AND didn't have a copy of my registration in the car. Rach saw me get stopped, then pulled over to the side herself. When the cop approached her car to see why she pulled over, she said:

Rach: That's my husband back there. He has some of my kids in his car. I'm just making sure he's not getting arrested for anything.

Cop: Why would he be getting arrested for anything?

Rach: He's a big, muscular, bald guy with no shirt on and tattoos. He looks like someone that needs to be arrested.

Cop: (Radioing back to the other unit) Use caution, unit 247.

But what if I passed on the 'face that people love to punch' gene? Anytime any of my friends started a fight at a bar, or even if it wasn't my friends that started it and it was just random people fighting around me as I minded my own business, I was always the first person to get punched in the face. Most of the time I was the only person to get punched in the face. So maybe Jaxon's fighting woes are my fault. Maybe they can be explained through complex DNA, Biogenetics, Genetic Engineering, and some other high end science stuff. Yep. Lets' go with that explanation. At least that way I'll have something to tell the teacher when she gives me the disappointed look next time.



On another note,