Alex happily finished up the t-ball season with one final game and an ice cream party afterwards. Of course, he doesn't eat ice cream, so we just skipped the party. I think the whole family would have happily skipped the game as well, but we did go to that part. Everyone did pretty well for the first couple of innings but it was all downhill from there. It was hot, there was no shade and very few players or fans wanted to be there. At one point the grandmother next to me urged her grandson to get up off the ground. He was lying in the middle of the infield, near the pitcher's mound, flat on his back. "Mason, you might get hit!" Mason looked at the batter and said, "I don't think so." I had to agree with Mason. There wasn't much chance that anyway 10 feet beyond the tee would get hit.
Alex played third base for the first part of the game. He chatted up all the runners, telling them jokes while they were on base. Later in the game, as attention flagged, he was moved near the pitcher. He sat down and faced center field. Again, he was safe. As the game broke up, Art looked at me and said, "Well, that's the last ballgame we ever have to go to." He may be right.
I thought we were the only slackers there who just didn't care about team sports but a week or so after the last game I got an email from the Y coordinator. Three gloves were left at the ice cream party and they were in the office if anyone needed to pick theirs up. At least we took our glove home!
A couple of Saturdays ago we got up bright and early and went to The Happy Berry to pick blueberries. Alex was amazing - he picked a pound and a half on his own. Then we came home and it was like Bubba Gump Blueberry Co. around here. We made blueberry muffins, blueberry cake, blueberry crisp, etc., etc. And we froze a lot, too. The neighbors and both of our offices got blueberry cake. It's one of the recipes that I got from Mamaw's recipe boxes (she got it from Aunt Nancy). Here it is:
Blueberry Cake
1 box Duncan Hines Golden Butter cake mix
1/2 cup cooking oil
8 oz. cream cheese
3 eggs
1 can blueberries, drained well (or 2 cups fresh blueberries)
Mix the first four ingredients well. Add blueberries, stir in. Pour into greased and floured tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees about 50 minutes.
(It will also make two loaf pans. Mamaw notes that you can substitute sour cream for the cream cheese, but I haven't tried it.)
Here are my quotes from Alex for the past few weeks:
On the way to school he asked me if we could have a Bakugan Battle when we got home that afternoon. I avoid this when at all possible because Alex is the only person in the house who "knows" what the rules are and how it is played. He had his little Bakugan figure ask me to play, speaking in a sort of faux-Mr. T voice. When I told him that I didn't really want to because I always lose, the little blue figure told me, "Sure you can. You just have to believe in your self!" We definitely need to cut down on the heroic, uplifting and inspiring Japanese cartoons around here.
In the car, with Art teasing him way too much: "I'm not here for the jokes, Dad."
In an echo of what they are probably told a million times a day at school, whenever we tell him to hurry with something, Alex replies, "Be patient." This is very annoying.
While I was explaining a rule of polite society that he'd failed to follow in the grocery store, Alex listened quietly as I talked. When I'd finished he looked at me and said, "I'm starting not to like you so much." I told him to get used to it - we had at least 13 more years to put up with each other. He started muttering about his rocket ship then.
Last week we were called in to the director's office on the way out of preschool. It seems that Alex had thrown something hard and hit Alba in the head. There was a scratch and a knot. Mrs. Karen was trying to get to the root of the problem. We couldn't quite tell if Alba was the target, or if she was collateral damage. I pointed out that we shouldn't hurt our friends. "She is NOT my friend." (I'm new at this.) Mrs. Karen corrected that, we don't hurt PEOPLE. We still couldn't get a reason out of him. Finally in a fit of frustration Alex said, "It's not like I have a control switch!" Ain't that the truth.
Part II of the Alba injury story: Alba is 5 and her sister is 3. When they got home that evening, Alba was showing off her boo-boo. When her sister asked what happened, she explained that Alex had hit her. Unfortunately, their father is also named Alex. Her sister went to him, shaking her finger and telling him that he should not hurt Alba like that. It took some explaining all around.
Last but not least, the weekend excitement in our house. In a money-saving effort (sort of), I consolidated our phone bill and satellite television. It was decided in a 2-to-1 vote that we needed a new television for this adventure and to celebrate the end of cable. We headed to Walmart Sunday afternoon. After looking at many seemingly huge screens, Art chose one. (I have no idea what the criteria were, other than my feeble attempts to get them to look at smaller TVs were definitely ignored.) Alex and I went off to another area while Art took care of things and got the TV out to the car. On the way out, Alex, who hadn't seen Art take the TV out, asked why we hadn't gotten one. We explained that we had. "Oh. Is it HD?" Why does he even know that? Yes, it is. "It would be better if we had satellite." Sigh. We're getting it this week. "Will Spongebob still be on it?" Now, we missed a golden opportunity here. Yes, all of your shows will still be on the new TV. We are now waiting for the Direct TV guy to finish up with our dish so we can see how it works. I'm sure way better than we ever needed. Art does say that the big rigs on Ice Road Truckers now look way bigger than they did on the old TV.
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