Hodge podge

Monster Man has been on a roll lately, evident in his assortment of Good and Not Good evening tally marks of the renewed behavior chart. For N days (not good) he has to go to bed early, no evening treat or special event the next day. Thankfully, by the third week of the resurrected behavior chart, he's had more G days, but the N days-wow. Insane. In attempts to have a 'G day,' Monster Man shocked me one morning by being up early, WITH his school books open and working! The boy had six school books open to the correct pages in the den floor, moving from one to the next. He did have the TV on, which is a no-no during school time, but as he was doing work without me threatening him within an inch of his life nagging and being mean mom/teacher, I let him go and redirected him to the table after break. On the negative, he was a pistol Saturday morning! AAARRGGHHH!! I held off strangling him in front of his dance team buddies- four N's (not good) on his behavior board in two hours. He went directly to his room until lunch was ready. That afternoon and evening was much improved. Sunday night, he drew a picture for me on his way to bed. Literally, grabbed the paper from the school shelf and pencil from the table, sitting down to draw on the living room floor in the path to the stairs. Two little stick people, one slightly taller than the other, holding hands with a heart above them. He brought it to me, "This is me and you because I love you Mom. I'm gonna have a G day tomorrow!" Just melted me. Little fart.
The kicker- this morning after the first round of school work, he announced he was going to the basement to play trains. Our basement is the equivalent of a ToysRUs that upchucked the Thomas Train and Play-doh sections in the plastic food aisle. Throw in a few huge Rubbermaid tubs, toy boxes, misc DVDs racking up my overdue tab from the Library. Cleaning the basement usually means several pick up race games which gets about half of it, then a second and sometimes third cleaning session of fussing, growling and frustration. Today, after hearing nothing but whistling, tracks being moved and singing, I was summoned to come look. Lo and behold, the basement floor was clean with the exception of a very interestingly and well-put together train track!! WOW- I was shocked and Monster Man was beaming!
Color the day a victory! Whew.


I talked to Mr. FixIt tonight from more than halfway round the world. He sounded tired and he's only been gone three days. He's been from meeting, to dinner, to presentation, getting very little sleep, to meeting...GOOD. They're keeping him busy! HA! Hehehe. He'll probably feel bad when he finds out I did leaves again today- until he realizes working on the yard consisted of me burning about a half tank out of the mower, mulching and bagging it! Woohoo! He knows better than to leave yard toys and power tools behind. I'll use them!

Very thankful for the recent beautiful days- awesome!! Took advantage of the not-yet-gloomy mornings to take down and wash curtains and windows in the living and dining rooms over the weekend. YUK- they seriously needed it! I gave the LR and DR a good dusting and B helped vac. The den is next on the list. I've had the house open as much as I can, at least until evening. Not sure smacked motivation into me, but over this gorgeous weekend, the kids and I also stripped/swapped all the bedding and ran about 3 bazillion loads of laundry. Somebody'd better check my temp- I must be feverish.