Spiderwick, Continued

The Spiderwick books arrived. Aran likes them--we're reading them aloud, a chapter a day--but Mackie's interest comes and goes.  Sasha shows no interest.

Aran asked Kala plaintively, "Can I read these on my own?"

"Of course," she said.

Finished a Script

A friend and I have been working on a comic book script for THE FANTASTIC FOUR.  It's actually for a mini-series that focuses on some of the
background characters, not for the comic itself.  He writes a piece and sends it to me, I edit, then add to it and send it back, he edits, adds to
it, and sends it to me, and so on.

We finished the first issue over the weekend and now it's sitting for a while, out of sight to mellow so we can give it one more pass-through later.

We have a couple of tentative contacts at Marvel, so we can send it in.  I'm figuring the project will be rejected.  It's my/our first outing in this field, and that's how this sort of thing usually goes.  I'm hoping that the editor will add, ". . . but if you come up with something else I'd like to see it."

Then I hit them with one of my original projects.  See?  It's all planned out!  I'll be rich and famous!

Just Once . . .

Just once I'd like to a week--a day, even--when all three boys come home with sterling behavior reports.  Just freakin' once.  Every day we have to deal with at least one kid who had a behavior problem in school.  And I do mean =every= fucking day.

I'm tired, and I can't wait until summer and it's accompanying respite.

This week, for example, we had this:

MONDAY: Maksim gets no good behavior stickers at all, Aran earns only one. (They both need two out of three.)  They both lose TV for a day.  Sasha is fine.

TUESDAY: Maksim gets two stickers, but is on "yellow" on the behavior traffic light, so he loses video games.  Aran has earned no stickers at all and is crying in his room about it.  It takes ten minutes to calm him down. Sasha behaves fine at school, but throws a tantrum when I check his vocabulary homework and make him redo the problems with mistakes.

WEDNESDAY: Maksim earns three stickers and behaves perfectly.  Aran has three stickers.  Sasha has been put on Step Two of the middle school's weekly discipline system (two steps in a single day) and has a note from his teacher that I have to sign.  Kala informs him that if he gets to Step Three before the end of the week, he can't go to the St. Patrick's Day dance on Thursday.

THURSDAY: Mackie comes home with three stickers.  Aran comes home with three stickers.  Sasha was put on Step Three.  He can't go to the dance now.  He is spending the evening upset and pouting and playing the martyr.

This is completely typical.  Every day it's something.  Kala and I are both tired of handing out consequences every day.  Just for a week or even a few days I'd like to have good behavior reports from all three of them.

The First Ride

The weather got into the high forties today.  In Michigan, this is practically summer weather.  So I went for a bike ride, the first of . . . pre-spring.

 

I ride my bike three seasons out of four, which makes winter difficult, since I'm so used to riding all the time and then abruptly I can't.  (Well, I probably =could=, but I wouldn't get any enjoyment out of it.)  As a result, it felt very good to get out and ride.

 

I rode the back roads, which were not nearly as bumpy as I expected.  Snow was melting in the fields and rushing into the ditches, creating new runoffs and creeks and streams everywhere.  The sound of running water followed me everywhere, and I wondered if this is what the earth sounded like before the rivers formed.  An enormous flock of geese was setting up camp for the evening in an old cornfield, and they honked and called to each other, their bodies hidden by the earth, their voices carried on the air.  A pair of white swans flapped heavily overhead.

 

I rode and rode and rode, and my leg muscles didn't protest nearly as much as I thought they might.  A winter of karate training kept everything in fair shape.  Go me!

 

It was splendid being out in bright, clear air, clad a jacket and scarf, skimming in a breeze that didn't hurt or howl.