Elementary Rhetoric

Man, it's just been one of those nights. ES was just in a mood-and-a-half tonight.

Shortly after I came home, I looked out the sliding glass door to see ES digging a hole in the middle of the grass in our side yard. I opened the door and said, "ES, please don't dig holes in the yard."

ES looks at me with the shovel in his hand and the mound of dirt at his feet, and says, "I'm NOOOT! The hole was already THERE, we're just taking the DIRT out of it!" He said it with a tone of voice as if to say, "Duh, Dad! Get a clue!" Um, yeah, well, I could have sworn there was GRASS there when I left for work this morning.

Then again, maybe he's just a zen master in training. The hole really WAS already there, it just happened to be full of dirt and covered by grass. It sounds like some deep philosophical debate like - which came first... The chicken or the egg? The neutron or the fission? Anyway, moving on...

At the Cub Scout Pack Meeting tonight, we had the "graduation ceremony" where each of the scouts were advanced to the next level. I knew in theory that some sort of ceremony was happening and that ES and his pals in the Tiger Cub Den would be moving up to become Wolves, but I didn't know anything about the ceremony. There was a little wooden bridge they walked across, and when they reached the other side, then the Cub Master and one of the Wolves took off the Tiger's orange neckerchief and put on a Wolf's yellow neckerchief and gave them a Wolf book.

ES crosses the bridge wearing his orange Tiger Cub neckerchief for the last time.

ES gets the yellow neckerchief of a Wolf Cub

All the other kids happily walked across and got their new neckerchiefs and books and didn't think twice about it. ES got back to his seat, he had a nuclear meltdown. He tore off the yellow neckerchief and threw it and the wolf book on the ground. There was more drama than that to go along with it, but I'll spare you the details. I was just really frustrated that he was making such a scene and having such a cow about it when all the other kids were fine.

On a happy note, ES was really excited about the Recruiting Award he received for convincing E, his best friend from school (and now neighbor) to join the pack.

YB wasn't in particularly a bad mood, but he was taking a lot of cues off of ES and playing monkey-see-monkey-do. He would see Brian all in a huff and upset and stomping his feet, so he would find something pointless to be upset about, too, just so he could be like his big brother.

Case in point: We finished getting the boys' jammies on and I told YB to pick up his dirty clothes and put them in the laundry hamper. You'd think I'd just asked him to carry a seabag full of TDU weights from the sonar sphere to shaft alley and back. (Aside: For any non-bubbleheads, that'd be like carrying several hundred pounds across about two football fields with a few sets of stairs and ladders along the way.) He let out a tremendously dramatic SIIIIIIGH and in an exasperated tone said, "Why do I have to do everything for you???"

Oh yeah, and where did YB pick up the sudden pirate obsession??? Tonight we went to Bravo's for dinner, and he was saying "ARGH!" a lot. Plus, he rolled his paper kid's menu into something that he was using alternately as a spyglass and as a sword. Of course, when he's using it as a sword, then we get to listen to his sword-fight sound effects - ching! ching! ching! All the way out to the car, YB was continuing his "ARGH!" routine and looking through his spyglass. I got him strapped into his booster seat and got in the driver's seat. Things were peaceful for about a minute. Then, all of a sudden in my peripheral vision I saw the "sword" jut out between the driver and front passenger seats and poke LW in the arm with another ching! ching! ching! from the back seat. I'm thinking he must have seen something pirate related on TV today, because I'm not sure what else would have brought all this on.