gettin' medieval on ya

Lastborn decided that he wanted the sandcastle cake on the cover of Family Fun magazine for his birthday party. Our first idea was to have a beach party. Then Lastborn struck on Medieval. Great idea.


We found nerf swords online for only $2.95. I decided I could make up shields from poster board and duct tape. The boys could decorate them. Lastly there was the joust. What's a good medieval games without a joust. I figured out that pool noodles would make a safe lance, but what about horses. Wouldn't do much good to have the boys run at each other with a pool noodle, would it. Eureka!! Hop balls. We have 'em. The boys never use 'em. Perfect.


Lastborn only invited 4 boys and only 3 showed, so it was a very manageable crowd. The boys had a great time decorating their shields. I found some coloring book pages on line to use as symbols; a dragon, a lion, a bear, a couple of griffins. I got out some crayons so they could color in the field. They had a great time drawing and cutting out the pictures.


They loved the nerf swords and enjoyed being "dubbed" by the queen of the festivities (moi). Then we broke them up into pairs to sword fight. It soon turned into a milieu with all 4 boys attacking each other.

Then we moved onto the joust. Staying on one of those balls is as hard as staying on a horse. Even Firstborn and Dr. Phil from across the street joined in on this one.

After games outside, we proceeded in for presents and cake. They all had a great time and they were excited to bring their swords and shields home.

Best quote of the day for Mom? Wow! Look at that cake.

Best thing for Lastborn? Swords.

The real story

I just got a call from the secretary at school:

Secretary: Hi, Mrs Scalzi. This is Mrs. K from the school.
Me: Hello?
Secretary: Don't worry, the boys are fine. I'm calling because Ms. Principal would like you to sign some certificates she had made up for the DI participants.

Inwardly, I'm laughing. You see, the first thing that came to mind when she announced who she was didn't include. "Oh no, what happened the boys." It was more like, "Oh no, what did they do now."

My sister has this theory that whenever you get two or more boys in a room together without supervision, the dumbest idea wins. Well, with my boys, sometimes this happens even with supervision.

And it definitely doesn't have to happen in a room. Take last night for example. . .

At about 5:00, I got a call from the Accordion Player's mother (we'll call her APM).
APM: Did Firstborn tell you about the lake?
Me: No.
APM: I was afraid of that. Well, Accordion Player came home sopping wet from head to toe. Of course, I had to ask him how he got that way, and by asking some detailed questions, I have determined that they came across some body of water out in the woods. Well, one thing led to another and, of course, my son fell in.
Me: Funny. Firstborn didn't mention anything about it.
APM: Accordion Player said they were all going to tell their parents, but I wanted to make sure. I didn't know about any water back there.
Me: Nor did I. I know it's a dry creek bed, so maybe from all the rain, there is a puddle.
APM: Well, this must be bigger than a puddle because Accordion Player said he had a hard time getting out and Dr. Phil (the kid across the street) had to fish him out with a stick. He said something about feeling something swimming in there with him.
Me: Oh my. I will definitely talk to Firstborn about this and I'm thinking we are going to have to take a break from the woods for a while.
APM: That's what I'm thinking. Accordion Player's dad (we'll call him APD) is going to take a walk out there to see what this body of water is tonight. Would you like Firstborn's father to go too?
Me: I'd like that. I'd like to see what they are up to.

Fast forward to later that night. We are sitting at dinner when APM calls again to tell me that APD and Accordion Player are going out now to check out where the kids are playing. It's pouring out. DH is not happy about going out then, but we are all thinking this is a temporary puddle in a natural watershed area. So, we should look while it is wet out.

APD comes by with Accordion Player and Accordion Player's big brother. Now, APD is a big guy. He's rather tall and a bit overweight. He doesn't look like a hiker. He has the posture of a tall man who gets little exercise. I watch them start the trek out in the back yard through the dry creek bed (yes, it's still dry). The boys are scurrying in the lead, their bright Midwestern blond hair illuminating the twilight shadows. Further and further behind, I see DH's and APD's shadowy forms struggling to keep up. I realize that DH has taken this trek before and knows fully well the footing in the area. APD on the other hand, has never been back in the woods. This should be fun.

A half hour later, they are at the front door and DH is asking for my keys. The "water" is all the way by the main road near our development. A good half mile from the house. They can't get there on foot due to age and wet footing. So they are driving around to the main road to check it out. Apparently, on the trek, both DH and APD had each slipped once in the mud. This is why DH had decided to drive around the long way to explore.

The "water" turns out to be a nearby creek which drys up to a mere trickle in the summer, but swells with all the water we are having. It's surrounded by wetland. Not great footing even in summer. It's a fair piece from our house and they never should have wandered that far anyway.

So while DH and the guys are out getting really wet, I'm asking Firstborn what really happened.
Here's the story as told by Firstborn:

We went to check out a new area that Scottie (15 and old enough to know better) showed Accordion Player. It's got this big lake and we were exploring around there.

There was this log floating on the water and Dr. Phil carefully climbed onto it and balanced for a bit. So Accordion Player thought he would do the same, but the sand under his foot slipped (the area is surrounded by fine dirt carried downstream by the swelling waters. The water has receded, so this silt is remaining around the banks of the creek). So, he had to jump from the land to the log and it was too much and the log bobbed a couple of times and then went under with Accordion Player. (Why is it that I can imagine the look on Accordion Player's face as he went into the drink?)

Me: APM says that he had a hard time getting out.

Firstborn: I don't think so. He got out.

Me: But Dr. Phil had to hand him a stick.

Firstborn: Well ya. He did. But that was because Accordion Player was scared. (with a big smile) He said something was swimming around in there with him. (Oh great.)

So, this morning. The three errant boys were trading their versions of what had happened, and another twist to the story came out.

Apparently, when Accordion Player had announced that something was swimming around in the water with him, Firstborn had suggested that maybe it was an alligator. Dr. Phil, who's usually the most level headed in the group (wait, wasn't he the first to go out on the log?), corrected Firstborn telling him that an alligator couldn't survive the temperatures here in Ohio.

Firstborn argued back that his teacher had told them about people bringing alligators back from Florida and letting them loose when they got too big. I have got to have a talk with that teacher. Firstborn believes every single story he tells. Few of them are true.

Accordion player is pretty sure he felt a snake. Dr. Phil is more convinced it was a fish. Overall, none of them seem to understand the danger they might have been in horsing around near water a half mile hard trek from home.

It was quite the adventure and you can probably see now why I worry when the secretary at the school calls.



About the cast of characters:
Firstborn, you know well.
Accordion Player is a neighbor from the cul-de-sac down the street. He is white haired and slim, plays the accordion, and loves Weird Al Yankovic and Heywood Banks. Always quick with a joke or a one liner, he spends his live teetering on the precipice of danger and never quite falling in the drink. Until yesterday. Usually he has just enough judgement to keep himself safe and we have taught Firstborn not to follow him into danger. Just enjoy the show.

Dr. Phil lives directly across from us. He is intellegent and quiet. He is serious and tries to do well at everything he does. Talks well with adults and is usually the one we count on to be the voice or reason. I call him Dr. Phil because he seems like such a scholar.

APD and APM, the much-too-stressed parents of Accordion player. Each of them host a great sense of humor which is necessary when raising a boy like Accordion player. They are not overly protective but know they need to keep an eye on this child.

All that glitters

This year, Firstborn had a project that was so suited to his personality that it was scary. They study an economics unit each year delving into such topics as running a business and balancing your checkbook. This year's unit included a final project of creating a item, marketing it and selling it.

The school gave them a small business loan of $5.oo which was to be paid back with an additional 10% of their profits. Parents could either gift or loan their kids up to $5.00. The kids had to develop a business plan, rent a shop, buy all of their supplies, produce their product and then sell it.

The kids were generally trying to make the cheapest item they could make to maximize their profits. None of them seemed to understand their market (the lower class men of the school), or how to determine what was already available out there. They came up with some pretty interesting items. Firstborn was actually thinking of getting dirt from outside and making terrariums. We decided that this would be hard to take home. He also understood that Market Day was only 2 weeks before Mother's day and he could use that as a marketing tool.

We finally settled on rainbow makers using the prisms from our old chandeliers in Tewksbury. We had two very gaudy, very old-lady-looking chandeliers that we replaced in the old house and since DH and Firstborn are so enamored of anything glittery, we saved all the prisms.

He strung these, along with some seed beads and Swarovsky crystals on a length of

Fireline. He worked out that the cost of the materials was about $.75. So he charged 1.50 for each rainbow maker.

One day in class, as he was researching the cost of his materials ( he was pretty much using my beads and Fireline, but he had to pay me market price for it), one of the boys caught him researching the price of beads and began laughing at him and telling the class that Firstborn was making girlie jewelry. Firstborn remained quiet and told me about it that night. He was a little shaky on going forward with his plan until I explained to him that the boys in class obviously haven't done their homework. They should know from all the commercials on TV that girls are the ones who will drop money. If you want to make money, sell something that girls like. He liked this explanation and used it the next day. The boys still laughed.

They told him that his materials cost too much and he was never going to sell anything. They told him his idea wouldn't work.

Meantime Firstborn continued to make his rainbow makers and also he made some bookmarks using just seed bead strings with a Swarovski on each end. He carefully made a variety of colors to appeal to everyone. We packaged everything up and drove to school with it.

DH helped Firstborn make a display case. It was a cigar box with a glass top. DH painted the inside black and lined it with reflective paper. Then he rigged up a flashing LED key chain that changed colors from red to blue to green. They hung one rainbow maker inside. Flashing lights and sparklies, the perfect recipe for bringing in the crowds.

The day of the sale came and we were all nervously anticipating his results.

Well Firstborn came home elated. He sold every single piece he had made and sold $10 worth of orders that he would have to make up that weekend and deliver on Monday. After all his expenses and loan, he had $20 in profits. He had made more money than any other individual in the market. The rainbow makers were the talk of the school.

And many were purchased by the boys in the school.

His teacher purchased one and asked to keep the display box to show future classes. I think he got an A on this project.

Nova plays with the kitties

Who says that cats and dogs can't get along.

The cats have been very curious about Nova since she came into the house. I don't restrict her from the cats too often because I feel that they need to get a good scratch into her while she is small so that she will respect them.

Very quickly, Nadia developed a lot of confidence around the dog because she is so agile and can jump over the pen we are using to keep the dog contained. Not only does she jump over it, but she also likes to walk along the edge of it for a few steps before jumping down on the other side.

Georgia doesn't have the confidence because she is not as great an athlete, but she is just so curious that she is always the one who sneaks up to sniff the dog when she is sleeping on my lap.

After about two days, the cats were settled. I rarely see any raised fur or hissing anymore. And they never scratched Nova. So I decided that I could give more reign to her. Yesterday, I gave her run of most of the house. We have had her for two weeks and she has never peed on a carpet. So I decided to test my theory that while she is not free of puddles altogether, she will seek out a hard surface to puddle on.

She was so happy to explore the house and see what her friends the kitties were up to. She trotted around the house, picking up shoes and carrying them to other rooms and picking up the cats' toy mice. At one point, she laid down for a rest, and Georgia jumped on her and ran out of the room. A chase ensued and the two of them were cavorting around the house for a good 10 minutes before I decided to get the camera and see if I could capture this fun. The amazing part, was that both Georgia and Nadia looked like they were having nearly as much fun as Nova.

The set up for this video:

They had been playing for about 10 minutes. Nova would collapse and rest every few minutes (usually when the cats jumped onto some surface she couldn't reach). Right before I turned on the camera, Georgia had jumped on Nova and run to another room again. It starts with nova in a full run after her, and then she forgets what she was doing.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4838892239607044463&hl=en

And then I ran out of memory before you see the cats chase her into the office. Notice how Georgia goes into the library and lies down just a few feet from Nova. And the shock is that Nadia then joins them. She is such a skittish cat. I never thought she would be comfortable around a dog.

What's in a name

The struggle to name our little Nova started before she came home. From the drive home, I was discussing with the boys good names for the little black wiggling mass we had just met and paid for.

The name Gadunka came up. I've loved this name since Lastborn first started talking about the Bionicle character. What a great name for a dog. Gadunka. And given how mouthy she is lately, it's the perfect fit.

The cats submitted their choice; Nemesis. They were thinking definition number 3.

We mentioned to DH that the dog had a white star on her chest and I knew immediately what DH would come up with. Star. That's just so done which is exactly what DH would want. We had to come up with something just a bit more original than that, so I suggested Nova. The boys and DH loved it. (The cats are still going for Nemesis.)

But then my sister came up with the perfect name. Stella. From the Latin Stella meaning star. Also the Boston pronunciation of Stellar. And I figured that DH would love the Seinfeld reference.

He considered it, but later came back to Nova and will not budge. So the kids have begun calling her Stella Nova. And Nova is where it stands.

Sleep issues

New puppies are like infants except that instead of changing a diaper, you are constantly mopping the floor.

As a result, I'm seeing DH revert to his new fatherhood personality. Whereas he used to announce that no way were we getting a dog, he now spends hours cuddling with the little critter. Enjoy that while you can. She won't be little for long.

I'm not one for crates. I understand the whole concept that crate simulates a den, but where in the wild would a dog choose to be alone in their den? So our house is her den and we are providing safe places within this den. It makes things harder until she has learned basic commands like lie down stay and come, but I feel it is worth my investment. Anyone have any ideas on how to express this to my neighbor-cum-former-dog-breeder who has been lecturing me on how I should use a crate and how evil I am for adopting this dog before she was 10 weeks? Avoidance is my plan for now, but it would be nice to be able to speak to my neighbor in the future without fear of further lectures. :-)

So anyway, the sleep issue came up her first night. Of course, she was missing her siblings and her mother and we were of course the indulgent parents. So I stayed up most of the night cuddling and helping her comfort herself and then putting her in her enclosure in the kitchen. She would wake every hour and I would take her out to pee and start the whole process again. On Saturday, I was a zombie, but still determined to get her to sleep on her own.

By Saturday night, my resolve was gone. She slept on my stomach on the couch for the night. And slept well, I might add. The two of us got 6 hours of blissful sleep before her first necessary potty break and then she went right back to sleep on my stomach when we returned. Well, I must clarify. She got a blissful night of sleep. I got 6 hours of somewhat restful-you-can't-roll-over-even-if-you-want-to sleep. But it was better than an hour at a time.

So the same happened Sunday and Monday night. In a way, this is attachment parenting for dogs. Now that I proved her bladder is stronger than one hour, it's time to wean her a bit. So I got a cardboard moving box (small, book size) and placed a towel in the bottom. Once she calmed down, I placed her in the box awake. She slept next to the couch with me right there for 4 hours. I calmed her and she went back down for another 2 and then I took her out for a pee. Back in for a calming and into the box for until 6am. I'm feeling a bit more human again.

Wednesday night the same. I find that as long as I cuddle and let her warm up after the pee break, she goes right down.

So today, I have to get a bit of work done for my new freelance editing job. She is rambunctious because she got so much sleep last night and she doesn't like to wake alone in the kitchen. So after our 9:00 walk, I calmed her and placed her in the box for her nap. She is in the office with me, next to my desk. Sleeping soundly. She loves the box. It's like the crate, but I can't expect that she will stay in it, so I have to be with her. Right now, she can't jump out. I should start a pool on how many days until she can jump out.

Gotta get back to work now.