MORE of WHAT PASSES FOR CONVERSATION AROUND HERE

Nice shirt. Could be pajamas too.

Summer School

This spring Atticus(15) asked us if he could take a summer school class. That's what the kids do around here--not so often to make up a bad grade but to get a class out of the way and have some breathing room during the school year. We were opposed to the idea. "You're only young once, why do you want to spoil it with school?" we asked him."Think of all that down time you're giving up." But he was not to be dissuaded.

"Please, Mom and Dad, let me take chemistry," he actually begged. At last we relented amd I signed him up for two summer semesters. Having allowed him to take this class (and paid for it) we wanted to impress upon him that he needed to take it seriously and get a decent grade. But we did not want to say "You must get an 'A'" or anything that definitive because as any parent knows you only cause trouble for yourself if you go around making such quantifiable demands. So Jeff tried a casual approach.

"You know, if you're going to take that class we want you to apply yourself."

"Yeah, I know," Atticus grunted.

"So you should, you know, stay out of the 'C-hood'," Jeff said and warming to his clever use of language pushed on, "And kind of shoot for at least the 'B-ville'," and now thinking he was handling this just right, "And really, we'd like you to keep it in the 'A-ness'."

At which point he had to stop talking because all three kids and I were laughing so hard he couldn't continue.

My T-shirt

So I like to wear my Obama t-shirt as a pajama top. It has his head and shoulders and the words "Obama 2008" on it. Because it is my pajama top, I do not wear undergarments with it.

One morning, as I sat in my Obama pajama top reading the New York Times, Lilly came in and got herself a bowl of cereal. After several minutes of silence she looked up at me and in a pretty spot-on imitation of our president said, "Look, umm, I'm just saying, if you are going to wear that and your breasts are resting on my shoulders, umm, you should at least think about wearing a bra and bring those things up to my ears."