This morning

We are having new shingles put on the house. The crew doing it is hispanic. They started work this morning. The boy knew they were there but hadn't seen them. When we left the house he said, "Are those guys Italian?"

After we were in the car and heading to daycare I explained they were hispanic not Italian and he asked me what Italian was. I explained it referred to someone from the country of Italy. He asked me what Italy was.

Later we saw the truck in the picture. He is constantly telling me I need to get a new car so he can get a "hot girl". I'm not really sure a 9 or 10 year old girl is going to care what kind of car he rides in the back seat of, but he seems to feel a red mustang, camaro or charger is in order. So I pointed the truck out and told him I was stopping to ask if it was for sale. He asked why, I told him I thought we would look cool cruising town in it. "What? Are you nuts? You must be crazy?" he sputtered. "You've just noticed?" I asked.

Problems with Pencils

The only homework the boy had was to study 17 vocabulary words. It took an hour and 10 minutes. Part of the issue was supplies. He ran out of lead for his mechanical pencil. I refused to replace it based on the simple fact that be puts out too long a piece then uses too much pressure and it breaks. He informs me this is okay as he has some. I ask where, and he answers in his desk at school because they aren't allowed to use them. I ask why he is buying mechanical pencils at school if he can't use them in class, he says they can use them to draw at recess. I doubt the boy is sitting quietly drawing at recess if he can be running amok with other boys. He finely remembers he has a normal pencil in his book bag and asks me to sharpen it. I do, then as I'm returning the sharpener to the cup that holds the pens and pencils, I notice one of the ink pens looked odd. I examined it closely. "When did you do this?" I asked. "What?" he answered. "Run this ink pen through the pencil sharpener." I responded. "I don't remember doing that." he replied. "Well, I didn't do it." I said, "and I don't think any of the cats were well coordinated or inclined to do it, so who does that leave?" "I said I don't remember doing it!" he said. "I know I didn't do, and I can be sure the cats didn't do it. At what point did sharpening an ink pen seem a Good Idea?"

This Morning

It was 4:15 AM, and a quiet morning, perhaps too quiet.  I was sleeping, my favorite 4:15 AM activity.  I awoke to an alien presence in my bedroom door.  “I need you to come look at this.”  There was someone standing in the door.  I was instantly alert.  “What?”  I asked.  “I need you to come look at something.”  It was a male, approximately 4 and a half foot tall and about 75 pounds.  He was Caucasian, blond hair with blue eyes and wearing a grey t-shirt with red flannel pajama bottoms with blue dinosaurs on them.  I guessed his age about 9 years.  “Is the house on fire?”  I asked.  “No, I just need you to look at something.”  I got out of bed and followed him to his bedroom.  His bed had a large wet spot on it.  It was very suspicious.  I stripped the evidence and sent it to the laundry room for forensic processing.  I also had the suspect/victim strip and sent his clothing off for processing.  I hosed off the mattress with Lysol then made the second bed.  Then I went back to bed for the 50 minutes of sleep I had left.