Stories from the Week: Hey Google, find Tokyo

 This week brought another gem that exposed the quality of our public education system... or the failings of our education attempts as parents. It starts with story 1:

Zack is really struggling lately with maturing from coddled toddler to child with responsibilities. You might think he's a little old for this transition and you wouldn't be wrong. That aside we struggle to get him to do any meaningful work around the house. When he does do something, it usually consists of rearranging a mess rather than cleaning it up. But the part that really angers his mother is when he tries to cover up or lie about it. 

Zack has three main loves: his friends, his Beyblades, and his new bike (which he bought for $1.10). It's unclear which of these is greatest. About a week ago, Katie asked him to clean his room and then said he could go to a friends house. He very proudly showed off his cleaned room and happily went off to play. But when Katie entered the laundry room later on, she found the contents of his bedroom stuffed into nooks and crannies all around the laundry room. It was the last straw. He lost his friends, his Beyblades, and his bike. 

Beyblades, by the way, are simply little battle tops. He can have battles with his friends where the "spirits in the blades" fight each other. The idea that each top contains a warrior spirit falls out of the formulaic anime style cartoon whose sole purpose is to sell more Beyblades. 

At any rate, Zack has been pretty morose with those 3 loves of his life. I even made him list 10 things he was grateful for one day because he was being such a stinker. Eight of the 10 items were things he had basically lost until he regains his mother's good graces. All Zack really has left is occasionally (ok, daily) watching the Beyblade cartoon.

Story 2: Zack and Andrew were watching the Beyblade cartoon one day and I commented that it seemed weird that the Beyblade cartoon had a Japanese style animation. For some reason, I thought the toys were American in origin.

Andrew says: No they're Japanese.

Zack: Actually, they're made in Tokyo.

Andrew: Oh, huh.

I couldn't even begin to unpack this. Neither child realized that Tokyo was a city IN Japan?! How?! It's not like they're 3 and 4. They're 9 and 13! *Sigh*

Story 3: Nick just gets cuter and cuter. Katie tried to cut his hair and stopped halfway through - the curls were too much to overcome. Now she wants to fix it, but doesn't know how. He frequently goes up to a member of the family: "Guess what?" What? "Motorcycle." 

For 15 minutes driving today he pelted Andrew with "Guess what"... "motorcycle." It just doesn't get old. 

Zack has a Google bluetooth speaker in his bedroom and Nick loves to control it with his voice like Zack does. "Hey google! Hey google!  Hey google!" If only Google could understand him...

Also, he thinks our TV is a giant touch screen device. It's not even worth trying to clean it. 

Story 4: We went to a wedding reception last night and Nick had a blast. A low table full of food and drink that he could reach, balloons galore, and dancing! He loves to dance and him and Zack will go up and have a dance party in their room with the radio a couple times a week. Nick came home and just crashed from the reception. 

Also at the reception... Andrew asked a girl to dance. What?! Not even kidding. It was pretty surreal to look up and catch both my sons dancing at the same time. I even managed to get Katie so sway on the dance floor for a minute or two. Ben danced close to his girlfriend while Andrew looked like he couldn't get farther away, but he was still holding it together. Kallie danced with Nick, but there weren't any boys around her age. It was a good night.