We have a labor day party to go to this afternoon, so we’re doing our “Sunday Cleaning” early.  I’ve cleaned the upstairs bathrooms, but I have to do the downstairs one still, and I’m in the attic playing hooky.  Jenny’s cleaning up in Izzy’s room, because Izzy still needs some guidance (since she’s only 3).  The upstairs kids bathroom is the nastiest one in the house, since my children are all pigs.  The downstairs bathroom is a bit cleaner, since I usually clean it once during the week too, because all of Eric and Alex’s friends go to the bathroom in there, and they don’t have much better aim than my kids do (except for Al’s bff Lauren, but she has a natural advantage).

Picture of the day:  Jake looks like he’s up to something yesterday afternoon:

(this is almost politics, you can skip it if you want.  I haven’t voted for the winning presidential candidate since 1988, so maybe you can use that to figure out what I think about various politicians, but I doubt it)

John McCain’s pick for Vice President appears to have graduated from high school 2 years ahead of me.  I’m a horrible underachiever compared to her, and I don’t know how I feel about someone from my generation being anywhere near the presidency.  I would imagine she’s a lot more responsible than most people, so it will probably turn out ok.

So this morning Jenny went to do a vendor presentation in Hilton Head until tomorrow afternoon (tough duty, I know), leaving me in charge of the children.  Because I’m lazy, I decided that we would have pizza for dinner.  Delivery Pizza.  I love delivery pizza, especially when you can order it online, so you dont actually have to TALK to anyone. So I ordered pizza.  I’m generally a good tipper, because if you tip well, the people who deliver usually will make an effort to get the pizza to you while it’s still hot.  So I was kind of bummed out when the pizza wasn’t here after 45 minutes.  Right as I was getting ready to call the place to find out where my pizza was, the phone rang, and it was my sister in law from Florida.  Since she’s about 8 months pregnant, I figured I should answer the phone, because I’d get in trouble if she had the baby and I didn’t know about it.  So I answered the phone the way I always answered when I see her number on the caller ID…

Me: ”Why do you keep bothering me?”

Her: “I wanted to say thanks for the pizza!!! It’s great, but we can’t eat all this”

Me: “UGH”

A few weeks ago, she called me and complained that she didn’t have anything good to eat, so I ordered her a pizza (online) and had it delivered to her house.  The pizza website defaults to sending your pizza to the last place you ordered it from, so when I ordered pizza tonight, they sent it to her in Florida.

I hate when I do that. 

Here’s a picture of cute kids to prove that while I’m stupid, my kids are cute:

This is my last “first day of school” post for a while.  Probably until next year.  Today, Jake started Kindergarten, and he was REALLY EXCITED.  The big boys were very protective of him too.

He looks so small walking to the bus.  The teachers are all going to be lulled into a sense of security because he looks so little and cute.  It’s going to freak them out when he turns into the Tasmanian Devil.

I sent a picture of the boys to the Charlotte Observer this morning.  It’s about the third picture into the slideshow (but the same as the pic below, so dont bother if you’ve already seen it <g>)

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/278/story/150328.html

Blogging has been light lately, but things are slowing down (finally!) and getting better. 
Today, Eric and Alex went back to school, to 5th and 3d grades.  I can’t believe how old they’re getting.  Jake starts kindergarten tomorrow, they stagger the first day for the new kids.  With Jake, that’s a good idea.

Eric was NOT happy to have to get up at 6:00 AM again.  It’s NOT FAIR that school starts this early.

Alex was excited though, and as soon as Eric gets there and gets going, he’ll do great too.

I put down mulch in the front yard this weekend, which is one of my least favorite things to do in the whole world.  While I was doing it, I was thinking that the front yard needed….SOMETHING.  Luckily, I found that something on the internet the other day:  The Zombie of Montclaire Moors Sculpture.  I ordered it, and it should be here about the middle of September, just in time for Halloween.  Jenny will LOVE it!!!  If she is a total buzzkill and won’t let me put it in the yard, I’ll take it to work and put it next to my lifesize Darth Vader or my Leg Lamp (from A Christmas Story).

You can really tell that fall is coming:  today it only got up to about 85, and it rained a good bit last night.  I like summer OK, but fall is my favorite season. The pool closes in less than two weeks, and school starts a week from tomorrow (woohoo!).  Since Jenny is going to San Francisco tomorrow, we spent a while at the pool today.  Eric went to visit his cousin Will, so I’ll only have to deal with Jake and Izzy and Al this week.  It’s a short trip too, Jenny is going to stop traveling so much (double woohoo!)

When we moved into the house we’re in now (the house I’m going to DIE in, because I’m never moving again), it came with a “fancy” dishwasher.  It’s so fancy that I can’t figure out how to work it.  About half the time, it will run without popping open the dishwasher soap thingie, so all of the dishes get RINSED, but not WASHED.  Sometimes, like today, I don’t notice until I’m putting new dirty dishes in it.  I hope none of the kids end up with intestinal problems because my dishwasher hates me.

On another note, why in the world do women insist on taking the dishes OUT of the dishwasher?  I think it should be like a storage bin, where you use the dishes and glasses and whatnot out of it until you can’t find anymore clean ones, and then you put soap in it and run it.  It would open up all of that cabinet space for things like books or computer parts or something useful.  I’m a paper plate man myself, so I would throw out about half of our dishes if I had my way.  We still have the plate I had when I was a bachelor in the cupboard, I tell the kids that when I die, I’m going to leave it to one of them in my will.  (I really haven't put it in the will, because I want to give them something to fight over.) 

I think maybe we should have one set of dinnerware per person, and each person is responsible for washing their own stuff.  It would be much more efficient.  No one listens to me.

obligatory kid pic:  Al at the pool

I took Eric, Alex and Jake to see the Clone Wars today after work.  It was OK, but Jake got kind of bored toward the end, so he decided to try and make friends with all of the people around us.  I took him out and sat in the lobby with him for the last 20 minutes of the film.  It was OK, Eric was in heaven, and I can predict I’ll see it on DVD about 400 times.  After that, we met with Jenny and Izzy at 5 Guys and had burgers for dinner.  It was good, but now I have to take a nap…

Here’s a picture I took of the moon the other day to make up for such a boring post.  It’s not a cute kid, but I’ve had about enough kid time for today.

(This post strays dangerously close to politics, which I usually don’t touch, because you can get that anywhere, and I realize that you don’t care what I think about President Bush.  Remember though, I don’t care what you think either, so we’re even)

I watch the Olympics a little bit every day, in between episodes of Dora the Explorer and Mythbusters (it rained a lot today, so we didn’t get to the pool.  We actually could have gotten there, but a couple of the little monsters I live with didn’t want to clean their rooms or sweep the kitchen.  I rule with an Iron Hand!)

Anyway, it sure looked as if President Bush was having a good time, talking to the women’s beach volleyball team.  I can’t imagine what it would have been like had Bill Clinton been the president in this situation.

Yesterday Eric turned ten.  I can’t believe I have a kid who’s a decade old.  Eric had to threaten Jake with force to keep him from messing around with the cake.

My internet friend Shell tagged me with this the other day, and I’m just now finally getting to it….the rules are:

Each person posts the rules before their lists, then lists 8 things about themselves.  At the end of the post that person lists 8 other people they want to tag, then visits each of their sites leaving a comment that they have been tagged & to come to your space & read the post so they will know what to do.

I’m not going to tag anyone back, but I’ll play too:

1) I was totally stressed out the week before last and smoked 2 cigarettes.  They were REALLY GOOD, but then they made me throw up.   That was the first time I’d smoked since my son Eric was born, August 7, 1998.  (I got rid of the smokes, but I have decided that I’m allowed to smoke one every 5 years.  Next time I’m allowed is July of 2013)

2) I get really nervous in social situations, people think I’m stuck up, but I just freak out when I have to talk to people.  I probably should see a psychiatrist or something, but it would be too embarrassing.

3) I graduated college with a 2.3 GPA.  I’m glad I didn’t go to a hard college, because I would have flunked out.

4) The contract my customer has ends in May of 2010.  I have to decide what I want to do after that’s over.  I don’t really want to leave where I work, because its cool, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to find something interesting to do. 

5) When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut.  I still do.

6) If I could change one thing about me, I’d either want to be more of an extrovert, or creative. 

7) I hate listening to kid music, so I play rock and roll in the car.  Izzy’s favorite song is “Head Like a Hole” by Nine Inch Nails, and Jake’s is “Get a Haircut (and Get A Real Job)” by George Thorogood.

8) There is no #8.

Well, I’ll tag TWO people: 1) Joelle, because she’s been gone for so long, I need something to remember her by and 2) Jim, because he’s the guy who got me to start blogging.

Jake decided to steal my pocketknife from my desk in the attic (where he isn't allowed to go anyway) and slice his thumb open with it.  It bled a bit, but the cut was small.  He was remarkably calm about it, and I was pretty concerned until I cleaned it off and saw that it was just a little cut that dripped.

He also thinks that I’m stupid, because when I asked what he did, he said “I fell down and cut my thumb on my desk”, and didn’t think I’d notice the bloody pocketknife that was on his bed. 

He said “I’m sorry Daddy, I won’t do it again”.  He’s a liar.