So,
From the folder labeled, "Al Pacino Sez It Best," there's this:
Each week day, Trey has homework. They don't give him homework on the weekends, which I think is wrong, because that's when he has more time to do such things. Right? He disagrees with me on this point. Not that time matters anyway because his homework takes him about 3 minutes to do. Some of the math homework asks that someone at home check the work to make sure that it's correct. He has to do 2 + 2 and 9 - 0 and stuff like that.
Easy peasy lemon squeezey.
In addition (get it?) to that, we are supposed to keep track of how many minutes each day that we read to him and that he reads by himself. I try to read with him a little each night and he has gotten into the habit of reading by himself for about an hour each night.
My kid? Reading? Weird.
Now, let's add these two together to get to the point of the first segment of this post. Last week, I checked over the 20 math questions he had to do for his homework. Later that night, we read a bit from the second Harry Potter book (still trying to learn how to cast the Wii Petronus) and we write down the minutes on his tracking sheet. Then he goes off and reads for over an hour on his own and comes back to record the time. They get prizes at school for their reading so he wants to know where he is for the week. He checks his tracking sheet and for the week. He has 20, 15, 20, and tonight's 80 minutes. He adds them in his head to get 135.
Um, okay, why are we practicing 2 + 2?
I tell Tia that we'll be meeting with Trey's teacher to figure out what he should actually be practicing because it ain't 2 + 2. I'm not saying that he's a rocket surgeon or anything but this is a waste of time and a waste of my son's brain.
Here's a small something from the huge folder labeled, "You're Shitting Me, Right?":
I'm not going to go into the whole history behind this because that would take an entire book. I will just give you the very short version. Years ago, everyone around us fought to destroy our relationship with my daughters, including my own family (who, at this point, are called "family" only because we share the same last name). Tia and I put up a good battle but about 5 years ago, they all won - or so they thought. My daughters moved out and pretty much cut us out of their life. My "family" helped take my daughters from a safe stable environment and put them in a living hell.
Now, I get it that the family of my ex hates me (well, not really, but I can see how, if you chose sides that vehemently, which side you would choose - this does not, however, excuse any of them from the emotional abuse they threw on top of my daughters and I'm sure some of them will rot in hell for what they did - where was I?).
What I don't get is why my "family" would choose that side. Right? I mean, I could see a whole, "We don't want to get involved," kind of attitude, at worst. We got suckered. "Come out here where you have support," they said and then Blam! Right upside the head with a Louisville Slugger.
Anywho . . .
Fast forward to last night.
My youngest daughter, Alex, has decided to add (again with the add? Really?) us back into her life. We're sitting there visiting in front of the fireplace last night and Trey is in bed reading. Alex decides this is a good time to broach a delicate subject. Members of my "family" have told her not to act like she and Trey are sister and brother because Tia and I haven't told Trey that he has sisters. They pretty much told my daughters that I had created a new family and that my daughters were not part of it. Nice stuff to heap on teen-agers that were both "Daddy's girls". You would probably be freaked out by some of the mind-fuck strategies people (and here I use the term "people," like, "family," loosely) have used on my daughters to try and trick them into cutting me out of their life. Of all of the emotionally abusive tactics used though, Alex said that this one was the most hurtful.
"Bullshit!" Tia said. She's subtle like that.
Speaking of subtle, I read a funny article today. The thrust of the article is that giving to charity is too important to leave in the hands of individuals so the people in the government should reduce tax deductions for charitable donations and use the money better cuz they're so much better at knowing what's important to spend money on. No, that's not the funny part. That's just plain stoopid. Here's the great line:
"Tax deductions for charitable giving effectively put the public good in the hands of wealthy donors and their pet causes – at the expense of government revenue for the fair and reliable provision of services."
I busted up. I'm hoping that Susan Froetschel, the author, meant it as a tongue-in-cheek joke. It's either that or she's an idiot or she gets money to write way-too-obvious propaganda bullshit.
Speaking of bullshit, let's get back to the story, shall we?
Alex and Ellie have been tip-toeing around the sibling topic for the last couple of days but were spending so much time here that it was getting awkward for them, mentally and emotionally. In fact, after it was all over, Ellie said she was getting to the point where she was going to kind of test the topic in front of Trey and risk pissing us off.
Trey was still up so I brought him out for a short visit. We talked for a couple of minutes and then I said, "Trey, do you have any sisters?"
"Yes," he said.
"Who are they?"
"Alex and Amber," he said, like "Duh!" which is appropriate, I suppose, when you ask someone who their siblings are.
You see, we did quite the opposite of what we were accused of doing. Trey doesn't have "half"-sisters. We don't refer to any of our kids as "half". Trey has sisters and they have a brother and we have always spoken of them in that way. It was something that we discussed and decided when Tia was pregnant. Our thinking at the time, which hasn't changed, was that calling our kids "half" would create an artificial division that could possibly create a very real emotional division later.
So, there's that . . .
And, finally, in the folder marked, "Damn If He Didn't Pull It Off":
The night before, Trey challenged the whole family (and this time I mean family) to a game of Skip Bo so that he could prove to all of us that he is, in fact, the Skip Bo Champion of the World, or at least of the family (you know? the real family - is that ever going to get old? I doubt it). Unfortunately for him, I happen to be pretty darn good at the game, unlike Phase 10 (although, lest you forget, I shall remind you that I tied for first the other night).
To add to the excitement of the game, I told him that the winner of the game would get double ice cream and the person that came in last would get none. Now the game was serious.
I should point out to Alex and Ellie that they should not get used to the ice cream thing. It's not a normal thing around here. We bought it in celebration of their return. I will say that we have very much enjoyed it though and it gave Trey an irresistible goal.
The lead changed several times as everyone (except Ellie - sorry, it's true) had a run here or there. Then, Wham! Trey took off on a run that didn't seem to end and left us all watching in amazement as he played card after card and to top it off, the last card that he had to find a home for was a "Wild" card.
Trey was the champion!
I did talk him into sharing his double portion of the winnings with Ellie so that no one was actually left out of the continuing celebration.
And, close the files for today.
***
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