Up a Tree House

This Saturday I built a club house. Okay, so I didn’t build a clubhouse as much as I oversaw it being built by people much more qualified. I’m not going to claim carpentry skills, even though as a single homeowner I’ve picked up some pretty cool skills in the last year. Using a saw and a level aren’t among those skills.

My son wanted a club house though. His idea for his new clubhouse was for me to buy a bunch of wood and for him to build it. Umm, no. I could come up with so many reasons to not go that route. All of those reasons in some way or another involving my son attempting to operate tools and ending up with less appendages.

So I bought a clubhouse kit. Trouble with the kit was that Andrew wanted a proper tree house off the ground. (Did I mention I don’t actually have a tree for it to go in like a proper tree house?)  My mother, who was co-builder, talked me into going six feet off the ground because of my son being so tall. Six feet off the ground looks like a tall building now that I’m looking at it from the ground. I can vividly imagine my accident-prone daughter rolling off its front porch. Hopefully, that’s just my overactive imagination.

The clubhouse kit came with a pretty interesting set of directions. My mom and I took turns reading the directions out to the volunteer builders. The directions were sparse to say the least. Whoever wrote those directions needed help. Obviously, they have never built the tree house or they would be much more specific in the steps. There was a clear moment in the process where I experienced all the frustrations of not being listened to by the one that I was calling out directions for. There may have been a little bit of yelling involved. But maybe, I can claim to be a better listener after the process.

The real issue with the directions was that it said it would take about thirty minutes to build. Right. Maybe if we had a crew of professional carpenters and better directions. We started at ten in the morning and finished at 5:30 in the afternoon, not counting the work done on the platform several days before. I’d like to see anyone figure those directions out and build it in thirty minutes.

It is built though except for a method to reach the tree house among the clouds (Yes, that is an exaggeration, I suppose). My son wants a rope ladder. I can see kids tumbling out the front entry, grabbing at a rope ladder. My mom has this fanciful scheme for some grand staircase. I wanted a tree house in my back yard, not a second house. I have only a few days to figure out a solution though because the children return soon, and I can see Andrew figuring out his own way to raise himself into the tree house. I don’t see that going well.

French Quarter Festival

At any time of the year, New Orleans is filled with people making spectacles of themselves. But if you add in a festival weekend, the spectacle becomes something worth seeing.

This weekend I strolled the streets of the French Quarter, taking in the sights of the French Quarter Festival. I’ve never attended a festival in New Orleans before, so I had added it to my list of things worth doing this year. A list that I need to move a little further along on or December will come and I will be forced to do something on my list every day. But I digress. I actually ended up at this festival unintentionally after the item on my list that I had planned for the day didn’t go off as intended. When we ended up in the middle of the festival, we seized the opportunity.

The first thing I noticed was the parking situation. I go into the city frequently, and I usually can get a parking spot for a relatively cheap price. Apparently, festivals are the time for everyone to capitalize on the lack of parking in the city. Parking spots near Canal Street were going for $115 according to one shop owner. A couple in line in front of us complained about the $50 fee for their parking spot. As we were searching for a spot, I actually saw a guy changing the sign for his parking area from $20 to $25.We paid $25 for a grass covered empty lot that some land owner in a lawn chair was selling spaces for the weekend. (Not to mention we walked and walked and walked.)

The stages of the festival’s entertainment were spread throughout the quarters along the river, but the street entertainment was just as lively. On every street corner, musicians populated the area with cases and containers to collect their tips. Several times as I walked past children playing, I thought that some music school must have told its students to get experience playing for an audience. In addition to musicians, there were stilt walkers, bible preachers, and silver and gold statue men, plus many more. It was a busy day for entertainment in the Quarters.

But of course with all of those people gathered together, tempers sometimes flair as well as the entertainers. With cars and carriages attempting to pass down streets filled with people, near accidents are prone to happen. I watched people yell at cars, get out of cars to yell back, and yell their discontent at the people on the streets. The crowded streets became a place to observe human interaction, the good and the ugly.

It was definitely an interesting day in the Quarters, but I would still rather stroll the streets when there a few thousand less people and everything doesn’t cost at least twice as much as usual. Moving onto the next item on my list now.

Easter Suprise

As a young child, holiday traditions abounded in my family even if I wasn’t aware of them at the time. Every year at Easter we placed the same Easter baskets out lined with plastic, green imitation hay and waited for it to be filled with candy the next morning. My favorite candy besides the duck and rabbit sweet tarts was the pink and yellow marshmallow bunnies. They didn’t come in the multiple colors of today, and it didn’t really matter because I preferred pink (still do).

We would also dye Easter eggs in these old green coffee cups that my mother would pull out of the cabinet for the occasion. Nothing fancy, just large ceramic coffee mugs. We’d boil water and drop food coloring into the water and wait for the eggs to brighten into colorful creations.

I’ve continued these traditions with my children, except I have these egg dying cups we usually use because of the absence of coffee cups. I don’t drink coffee, so who needs coffee cups? Usually I buy some cheap decorating kit that comes with the dye as well as some of kind of decoration for the eggs. Colorful eggs are not enough for my children who want stickers and tattoos and anything else flashy that the store puts in a box for the occassion. This year the kit came with these plastic collapsible dye cups, and I figured what the heck. They looked pretty cool, and the children thought that since it came with the kit, we had to use them. More importantly, it would save time in digging out the cups from heaven knows where I’d stored them last year.

Big mistake. Huge mistake.

The cups were supposed to stand up with the water, dye, and eggs. And though I followed the instructions down to putting newspaper beneath the cups, the newspaper was no help as the cups collapsed, spilling their contents everywhere.

The tradition calls for colorful Easter eggs, not festive cabinets, floors, and counter tops.

I ditched the collapsible cups, pulled out the old plastic ones, and began ruining towels as I cleaned up the dye.

The children got their Easter eggs, and I now have cabinets that need to be repainted to cover their pastel hues. The children felt certain that they would never see dyed Easter eggs again as I mopped up pinks and oranges. Maybe my mother knew what she was doing. I’ll be looking for some coffee cups next year instead of whatever cool way of doing it comes packaged in a box.

An Announcement

As all good stories with my children seem to begin, we were in the car. Andrew and I were going pick his sister up at school when I noticed that he was dancing and singing along with the radio in the back seat.

Now for most kids, that wouldn’t be a big deal, but this is the same kid that covered my mouth when I would sing to him as a toddler, and today tells his sister that he’s going to vomit if she doesn’t stop singing or dancing.

I let him know I had seen him with a smile (aka huge, goofy grin), expecting him to stop as he’s always done in the past. Oddly, he asked me what bus he would have to ride when I changed his bus.

“No idea, Andrew,” I said still smiling, thinking he was trying to change the subject.

“I hope it’s bus 42. If it is, I’ll be in heaven.”

Heaven from riding the bus? Did he have fever? A head injury? First singing and dancing and then the bus? This was the kid that groaned every time I mentioned the words riding and bus in the same sentence. Something was certainly wrong.

“Why?” I asked, trying not to let him know that I thought he’d hit his head and was suffering from some sort of concussion.

“Because the girl I like rides that bus, and I’d get to ride the bus with her every day.”

Insert heart palpitations, then goofy laughter, then wild exclamations. “Really? You like a girl? A girl at school? What’s her name?”

“I’m not telling you, and you better not tell Cara.”

And so it begins. Where did my little boy go that said he never wanted a girlfriend and he was going to live with his mother forever? Will he really be ten years old in a few short months?

Eventually, I stopped the laughing and began interrogating my poor child about this unnamed girl. He then proceeded to tell me that this was why he hadn’t said anything. Well, then. How come I was supposed to answer all their questions when I was interrogated? I kept my questions to myself though, but not before asking if she liked him back. His response was how was he supposed to know. I didn’t say he could just ask. I don’t think he’s ready for that. At least I hope not anyway.

Then it dawned on me that some girl would probably break my son’s heart one day; some girl that wouldn’t love my son as much as I do. Oh, I’m so not ready for that.

My babies aren’t babies anymore. If I needed any more proof, my daughter brought two books tonight to read at bed time, but tonight she read them to me. When did that happen? I’ve read books to her since she was old enough to blink in response. I appreciate that she has become a fluent reader in first grade, but that was kind of my territory.

I appreciate their growing independence, but it’s bittersweet. Before I know it, they are going to be complaining that I share their stories with everyone, (Let’s keep the girl story to ourselves. I did promise not to tell anyone.) and who knows how many more of these silly stories they will provide for my (and your) entertainment. Guess that means I better enjoy telling them while they are still happening (especially before they realize that I share them with everyone).