Almost five years since my last post...

Well, Brett and Tyler are about to be juniors in high school. Actually, home school. I pulled them out of the public school system when their middle school didn't take the harassment of Tyler by one particular kid seriously. It escalated to the point where this kid stabbed Tyler with a pencil. This required me to hop on my broom and fly at the school at least once a week. I threatened to call the police. After that, the kid stopped harassing Tyler, but I was over it. At least we no longer have to deal with this Common Core testing bullshit. Testing here in Florida worked as well as signing up for Obamacare when it was rolled out.

We have moved away from the old hood. We now live in the middle of nowhere. We have water buffalo for neighbors. I'm sure that there are humans living on the property in the house, but I have yet to see them in the last two years. I hear from other neighbors that they are physicians and they neglect their animals. Considering the number of cats that I have seen pouring out of their garage, I'm thinking they don't fix them either. A couple of the cats like to come in my yard and mock my cats, who are not impressed. Occasionally, one of them will spray my sliders, which will result in me grumbling about my cats when they had nothing to do with it. One of their cats was hit by a car and landed in my yard. He was still alive when animal control came to get him. Poor thing.

They're such refined children...

We took the boys out for Thai food (their favorite) for lunch. While we were waiting for our food, Tyler smacks Brett in the face and tells him, "I didn't hit you. I high fived your face."

And I wonder why I have "snow in my hair" according to Brett a couple of years back. It could be the fact that I'm middle aged and going to be a grandma. Nah. It's Brett & Tyler.

First Week of School and other Big Changes

Since way back at the beginning of time when I started this blog, B&T have grown into 11 year olds. Since Brett spent his kindergarten year making crayons naked, he got an opportunity to do it twice, so he is still in elementary school in the fifth grade. Tyler just started middle school in the gifted program. So he's hanging out with the evil geniuses. Trust me, having multiple gifted kids over means having unique and ingenius ways of getting in trouble. Oh, why can they not be like the geeks of yesteryear!

Anyhoo, Tyler has been getting up in the morning without a fight. That might be because he doesn't have to get up until after I'm back from walking Brett to school. In previous years, the biggest battle was trying to extract him from his bed. I tried everything from ice cubes to squirt bottles to loud noises. However, he has made up for his new and improved morning personality by doing things like drawing a mustache with blue sharpie on Brett when he fell asleep on the couch. (BTW, the hand sanitizer worked to get the remains off this morning). I'm wondering if there is a Law of Conservation of Annoying Kid Behavior which states that each child must exhibit all of his allotted evil, so that if it is removed from one part of life, it must be used elsewhere.

As for Brett, I've started walking to school with him. Because of his CP, and the fact that he has legs of slightly different lengths, one of his feet turns inwards. Since part of his therapy involved walking on a treadmill, I decided we might have better results if I made him walk to school. He gets to stretch his tendons, I get exercise, and when the zombie apocalypse comes, we'll all be ready to run. It's a win, win, win situation. Or so I think.

Brett spent the entire walk complaining about walking. Yesterday's complaints were that he had PE first thing and he was going to be tired out. Then it was that he was so skinny that this walking would make him lose weight and he WOULD JUST DIE!!! Today, my sister came with, and he complained about her coming. Then that it was Wellness Wednesday and he would have to walk around the track a bazillion times. Then he complained about his backpack, then my sister holding his backpack. Then it was back to dying. I'm beginning to think he's the reincarnation of Stevie's Nana Levy. Even the dead armadillos in various states of decomposition (and dining by the turkey vultures) did not distract him from his mission.

So that's how my day starts this school year. I'm going to try sticking an iPod on Brett to see if he sings rather than bitches, but I'm not holding my breath

Happy New Year!

One of these days, I really, really am going to transfer all the posts from my old blog here. Really. And I'm really, really going to start posting again. Though regular posting might have to wait until summer when I have more brain cells to spare, since I have a writing intensive semester coming up.

B & T are doing great. They drive me nuts. Would you believe that next year T will be in MIDDLE SCHOOL?! T is in the gifted program at school. I had no idea that a kid could talk his way in, but he did. His IQ was 1 point less than the threshold. The kid NEVER shuts up. And he never does his homework unless I hold the game systems hostage. I don't know how many times I've threatened the life of the playstation and Wii. And since Christmas, we now have an XBox 360 to threaten. (Or steal. He got a very cool zombie game I really want to play when they are at school just so I don't humiliate myself with my lack of skillz)

B has been definitively diagnosed with cerebral palsy and his legs are getting more and more crooked. Something Must Be Done Soon. What, I have no idea. B is definitely smarter than T, but he flunked the IQ test, probably because his physical challenges slow him down. Plus he's a bit of a space cadet. His hearing was tested, like mine was when I was little, with the same results. He's not deaf, he's ignoring us.

Tyler's latest bedtime delay tactic

Tyler waltzed into my room about 10:30 pm and started watching tv, like it's ok to do that on a school night. I told him to go to bed NOW!!!! He turns to me and says in his babiest voice, "Can't a little boy get a hug and a kiss from his mommy?" :\

Of course he got a hug and a kiss. I don't know what little boy he was talking about since he's 10 years old and weighs well over 100 lbs... about 40 lbs more than his twin brother.

I still want a fruit bat or two as pets

I've wanted one since I saw those cute flying puppies with five foot wingspans at Animal Kingdom. They have so much wing, and such cute faces. I was reminded of them at one of my current fave blogs, FU Penguin by this post and this picture.

I think a dozen or so fruit bats in the house, plus a coffin with native earth should scare off any burglars. And potential girlfriends for the twins. And invading Florida-visiting-relatives. And best of all, any potential future ex-husbands.

My Brettypie

A couple of days ago, Brett was going down the stairs when he had an epiphany. He turns to me with a big grin on his face and says, "I know why you like Halloween so much! You can violate your diet!"

Gee, thanks little boy.

Of course, this is no worse than Tyler naming his bath toy after me. Except that the bath toy is a whale.

It was a dark and dreary day...

Ugh! It's a dark and dreary day, and it's been like that for the last two days. We're having up-north weather (only warmer). Rarely does it stay cloudy and dark like this all day. And it barely rained yesterday. If it's going to be dark like this, it could at least water the grass and fill the "lake", which is really a retention pond. This weather is killing me. I'm so sleepy it takes two energy drinks to make me functional.

At least Tyler gets to wander through the swamp on a cooler, and therefore less buggy, day. Though I'm pretty sure less buggy in a swamp means you only get half a mouthful of bugs when you open it rather than a full one. I hope he leaves the snakes alone. He discovered yesterday how cool they feel when they wind around your arm. Yes, he is aware that we have four types of poisonous snakes in Florida and one of them looks similar to the one he played with yesterday. It has a cool rhyme to go with it that lets you tell the difference, but neither of us can remember it. Something along the lines of "Red and black, friend of Jack's," something, something, something and something about leaving the poisonous fucker alone.