Eating Makes Me Busy, And I Am Busy Right Now

Our car conversations have become stuff of lore.  Today was no exception.  I had to take the boy back to the Doc for the 4th time in three months for a knee injury this time.  It was after school and he was starving, so he asked for McDonald's. We head to the Drive Thru and he tells me he wants that chicken sandwich with a maxi.  "A maxi?" I say.  I then went on to tell him that a maxi in this country is typically a feminine napkin or hygiene product. His face dropped, then he said I will not ask for my maxi anymore.(Maxi is a large size for a combo meal in Germany).  He took it in stride and started inhaling his food.  During the inhalation, I was saying something and out of nowhere he comes out with "Eating makes me busy, and I am busy right now."  Wow!  How does one respond to this statement?  Well, with me, I fell to pieces.

We leave the Doc's office and start talking about cereal. He says he likes the chocolate balls.  Am I four years old? I lose it again.  It doesn't take much once I am on a roll.  He then goes on to ask me why everything he says has to do with them, as he points to there.  He says" I like nuts, that means there", he then says "in Germany we refer to them as "eggs".  At this point I am not breathing, and trying desperately not to crash the car.

We get to the grocery store and he asks for his "smacks" which is Honey Smacks to you and me. I brought a box home the other day because I had a hankering for them.  He ate the box.  So, we pick up a box and he informs me that I am allowed to have some.  Thanks kid, that's awfully kind of ya.

Watch me take out my lenses!

Since the boy has decided that sight is a win/win situation, he has been diligent about getting them put in every morning.  I learned some new things about them last night.  I had no intention of learning about contact lenses, but through the tenacity of the boy, I had little choice.

We both were heading up to bed at the same time and he mentioned that he now tries to clean his lenses at night because he doesn't have time in the morning and when he puts them in dirty, they burn.  I have seen the aftermath of the burning, his eyes were a little red, puffy and clockwork orangey like. 

Since I am not a lens wearer, I have never had to deal with the routine of lenses.  He knows this and decides that last night was to be my official education on contact lenses.  He followed me around until I gave in to WATCH him remove his contact lenses.  "See!  This is how I take them out!" he proudly announces.  I stand watching the show.  He removes both of them and carefully places them in his little contact lens receptacle thing.  He continues talking about another topic,  then he looks down and says, "Oh Mah Gawd, I forget which one is which, I hate it when I do that. And you know that is baaaaaaad."  I sigh and giggle and walk away so he can go through his process of figuring out which lens is which.  I can now cross of my list of things to do before I die :  #3,456 Watch Russian Exchange Student Remove Contact Lenses.

Okay, I have 10 minutes to stand

We have instituted the use of an alarm clock to wake the boy.  We head out about 530ish to walk our dogs which takes about 45 minutes.  This takes us past our usual system of releasing the hounds on the boy at 6am to being the wake up process.

Without telling him yesterday, I snuck into his room at 5:30 and set his alarm for 6:15.  Cybil hit the ceiling. <giggle>.  It was not nice what I did, but I hadn't thought of it the night before and we all needed the exercise.  We come around the corner at 6:15, I look up at the house, no lights on.  We get back to the house, I walk upstairs to see the carnage, and the LIGHT WAS ON.  Cybil turned his own light on!  Could this alarm clock thing be working?  I have it across the room, so he needs to actually stand and take a stride from his bed without breaking his neck on whatever is all over his floor.

I yell through the door, and he responds.  I got a vocal response!  Who is this boy?  I let him know I am jumping in and will holler for him in 5 so he can then jump into his shower.  Like clockwork....

On the way to school, he explained what the alarm did to him initially. After he got it shut off, the numbers registered in his brain.  Oh, 6:15, that gives me 10 more minutes before I need to stand.  The mind of a seventeen year old.....

I have a good tongue

We were at the Wawa on one of our now infamous candy bar runs.  In the store, as he is holding 3 King Size Hershey Almond bars, he informs me that Chocolate Milk is not in fact healthy lifestyle, then proceeds to select the chocolate milkshake and asks me what thickness he should choose.  huh?

He has told me on multiple occaisons that he has a good tongue.  Translation:  I have a good palette.  Really?  This from the boy who insists that Coke and Pepsi taste EXACTLY alike, that there is no difference.

Last night we managed to get into a great discussion over onions.  I made Salmon that had a chimichurra sauce.  There are scallions in the sauce.  I comment on how happy I was to see him eat something Mexican.  He said he would if not all mexican food had beans and onions.  *sigh*  I said to him there were onions in the chimichurra sauce that he just had on his salmon.  "NO!  There are not, I would know this, I have a (pointing at it now) vewy good tongue"  I pull out the ingredients and there are in fact scallions in the sauce, but these are NOT onions.  These are what they eat in the motherland while drinking vodka, therefore they are not onions.   Just in case you did not know that, well, thanks for reading...because now you do.

The Boy and the Bus

As it turned out,  it wasn't a sucker bet.  The boy made the bus yesterday.  This was after quite a bit of strategic planning on his part.  I am quite impressed with the thought processed he employed. 
First, he went to his locker BEFORE his last period so he would have his jacket and would not have to go to his locker after and subsequently miss the bus.  Next, he looked up and down the row (mind you his bus is on the edge of the circle, EVERYDAY) he picked a bus to get on and asked the bus driver if she could show him where bus #31 was.   He said she stared at him for a few seconds, looked around and let him know that he was in fact standing on it.  Hence, the boy made the bus and I would have won the sucker bet.

The boy's eyesight is not fabulous, he has contacts and glasses.  As it turns out, he never put his lenses in for the first 3 weeks of being here. So NY, Philly, and many other places we visited were literally a blur.  Our last visit to NY was a completely different experience, well, because he could SEE it.  Now whether he had his lenses in or not yesterday, I can not recall, I would like to think that he didn't considering he got on his bus without noticing the big number RIGHT NEXT TO THE DOOR.  Okay, enough said on this subject.  Let's see what happens today.

Healthy Lifestyle

Football has come to an end, and it is bittersweet.  The kids made it to their first playoff game ever and they hung in with a monster of a team for the first two quarters at least.  I could tell the boy was struggling a bit with the closure, but I think as of this morning, it has passed.

All of the sudden, he can come right home from school!  This means a few things, the first is catching the bus.  His bus is always the first bus parked on the edge of the school semi-circle.  Yet, on the 3 occasions this year that he actually NEEDED to catch the bus, he could not find the big, yellow, 30ft beast that was number 31.  ?  Today, he must catch the bus.  I was at lunch with my gal pal and asked her if she would make a bet that he does not find his bus.  She said, "That is a sucker bet my friend, and I do not make sucker bets."  He's gonna be walking home today, I know it.  I will get a text or a call to see if I can scoop him up, but I have meetings that will be interfering with said pickup.

Other things he will be able to do now that football is over.  SLEEP!  Yes, the ever elusive SLEEP!  1pm on the weekends is not late enough. We left the boy to his own devices yesterday to go to a birthday party.  This means he must feed himself. We leave the pancake paraphernalia on the counter for him, but on this day, he skipped the pancakes and went right to the Tuxedo cake.  5 layers of cakey, moussey, chocolatey goodness.  1/2 of the cake was left, 1/2 of the cake was eaten for breakfast.   BUT!!!!  It was washed down with Orange Juice, therefore it is part of his often talked about HEALTHY LIFESTYLE.  Now, the kid is 6'4", and while in football could consume 4000 calories a day.  He has an insatiable sweet tooth, one that I have never seen the likes of.  We have taken to "candy bar" runs to the Wawa so he can get his two King Size Hershey bars with Almonds.  This is accompanied by Orange Juice to make it, yes,  "A Healthy Lifestyle."  We are currently going through 4-6 jugs of Valencia orange juice a week.  We are also going through 6-8 King Size candy bars a week, not including other treats like the Twinkie, The Oreo Double Stuff cookie, and assorted cakes, etcera.   

He will not eat any cooked vegetables, mashed potatoes or anything that has onions.  For a person that could eat an onion raw, this has presented its significant cooking challenges.  I now make roasted potatoes, at least 4 times a week.  Scrubbing, peeling, chopping and mixing.  I used to love roasted potatoes, now....not so sure.  One of the host mothers told me that she never made a special meal for the kids, they either eat what they get or they don't eat.  I tried that for about 30 seconds and I caved.  Weak, I am weak I tell ya.  So, for the time the boy is here, I will continue to make two meals so I can get my veggies and he can get his healthy lifestyle of chocolate and orange juice.

Lost In Translation....

There have been a few phrases the boy has used that we have had to curtail for fear of response from others around him.  There are others that are so endearing, they need to be shared.

1. Where is my handy?
Translation:  Where is my cell phone?

2. Where is my nuts?
Translation: Where is Virginia? (one of our dogs)

3. Singing the pancake song every morning.
"Pancake, Pancake, Pancake Time!  WooHooHoo! Pancake Time!"

I received this text yesterday accompanied with the picture:

"Ralphie is helping me cleening my room :D" 

I will be adding on phrases as they come flying out of his mouth.....

Morning Squirrels, The Wheelchair, Coney Island Protests

Morning Squirrels

It's funny, each morning after the pancakes, making the lunch and getting his schoolbag together, you'd think we have a good routine.  This morning started out almost the same way, other than he was walking out the door with no shoes on.  He was moving the speed of molasses, so he had to down the pancakes at record speed.  We are now eating them stacked, but cut into perfect squares or rectangles to satisfy is OCD with symmetry and equal parts.  We head to the car and we are at the gate when a very long arm shoots over my head, and the boy yelling "Squirrel Those things are craaaazzzzy!  It's going to be a good day"  I had to agree.

We always have good conversations in the car; or more like me running down my mental list of all things we didn't accomplish the night before.  He mentioned that we are a "well oiled machine" and that we have found a good routine.  I think during the week, that is sorta true, but I like to pride myself on the fact that we truly are anything but routine.  Take the past two weekends.......we were in NYC.

The Wheelchair

A good friend had ACL surgery and is laid up in her tiny NOHO apartment for about 6 weeks.  The boy has adopted her as his big sister here in America and wanted to go visit to make sure she was ok.  Last weekend, we did and when we arrived we promptly had a milkshake delivered to her apartment for him. Your in New York, what else should you be doing....Empire State Building, Times Square...no, we had a milkshake delivered.  As I digress.....this past weekend we went back up for a visit but took along a wheelchair so we could get her out and about and head over to Brighton Beach for some AWESOME Russian food and a stroll on the boardwalk.  My friend was trying to use her crutches down the street so the boy started pushing himself in the wheelchair, down the street, into a streetsign, then skidding almost into a car door because he didn't know the thing had breaks.  The kid has a 34" inseam. That is some long legs, how it had not occurred to him to use them before hitting the car is far beyond my comprehension.  We grabbed him just in time.  Meanwhile, we have exchange student #2 with us. He is 15 and from Germany and has NEVER been to New York, or Philly or any big city for that matter. His village is in what was East Germany and has a whopping 1000 people.  Welcome to NY kid, here how about a ride in a wheelchair.

Brooklyn

The weekend before, as I mentioned, the boy and I were in NYC and headed over to Brighton Beach and had one of the best meals EVAH.  So, we loaded up the 6 of us and drove to Brooklyn to check out the beaches and eat some GOOD FOOD!  Brighton Beach is about a mile down the boardwalk from Coney Island.  We decided to head that way, then come back up and have some lunch. It was a brisk and sunny day and the boy was content pushing his big sister down the boards while #2 was taking it all in.  We came upon a protest!!!  We joined the protest!!!  Coney Island was bought up by Luna Park and they are shutting down businesses that have been there for over 70 years.  The boys got signs and T-shirts that said Save Coney Island and I bought out everything fried for them to try.  This included:  Corn Dogs, Shrimp, Chicken Strips, French Fries and Funnel Cake.  All washed back with Cokes.  NICE.

After this show, we decided we needed to get back to some normalcy and head into Times Square to watch it light up as the sun went down.....after #2 had yet to experience this........

Scientific Experimentation

The boy has a thing for coagulated something on his plates or griddle.  Take a look at this 3 day old science experiment I found in his room last night.  They were rosemary potatoes in butter an oil.  Now, they are a potential home for creepy crawlies with huge gnashing teeth.

Ewwwwwwwwwwww.

Testosterone Overload and I'm Bitchy

It was Thursday night and we were all hanging out at the house.  I said something snide about his "research" on women's brains and he promptly opens up his laptop to "find a word" to capture what he wants to say.  You should check out http://www.dict.cc/ the next time you have an exchange student living with you.  You can type in a word and it will SAY it back to you.  He was bent about my commentary so all of the sudden I see him hitting a key on his laptop and "Bitchy, Bitchy, Bitchy, Bitchy,  Mean, Mean, Mean, Mean, Nasty, Nasty, Nasty, Nasty" come out of his speakers while he is falling to pieces laughing.  "I could not think of the right words, but my computer helps me" he says.  epic fail.

264Pancakes, Symmetry and Boys are Smarter than Girls

The Pancake Count

We are now up to 264 pancakes made and eaten.  The boy made his own yesterday and proudly displayed how clean the counter was and that no carnage left behind, including strange clear liquids.  As I have posted in the past, these mornings with the boy and his pancakes are still among my favorite, our conversations, although short are often poignant, like the one the other day.  I pick at him because of his need for all things to be equal, he is a waffle.  I, on the other hand, like odds and all things swirly, I am spaghetti.

The boy has a tendency towards symmetry and order even with his pancakes (although not by his bedroom that is now a repository for pantry items and dirty laundry) He puts all four pancakes in its own corner, then proceeds to put a dollop of syrup in the middle of each and spreads it evenly over each pancake.  THEN he uses his knife and delicately slices through each one.  I had given him a bit of a ration on this, so he rebelled and started cutting them into triangles and other odd shapes to prove he wasn't so stiff.  To add more drama, I caught him eating them STACKED.  It was a moment that was fleeting, he is back to his four corner methods of pancake consumption.

Breakfast Conversations

I bet you didn't know that men can back into parking spaces better than woment because of their ability to picture 3D geometric images in their minds.  I had no idea either.  Now, granted I can not park into a regular parking spot straight to save my life, but I can fit my car into ANY parallel parking situation.  I am that person you hate in the parking lot.  But according to the boy, there is a chunk of female brain that just doesn't process that imagery quite as well, hence our inability to park.  He learned this on a German television show called Galileo, therefore it must be fact.  So ladies, give it up on the visualizing the parking space because we are physiolgically incapable of accomplishing such a feat.