The Po Show

The Other Stuff

I keep posting only about the bad stuff, the heartbreaking stuff. But there's good stuff these days too, that can still make me laugh and still make me smile.

Tessa is too amazing, too funny. She drives me NUTS with her drama much of the time, but she is just so breathtaking. She keeps making these books, pieces of blank paper stapled together, with elaborate pictures and headings and titles like "Bugs are Cool" and "The Amazing Outside!" Exclamation point hers. For National Poetry Week, they had Poem in Your Pocket Day, during which each kid was supposed to choose a poem and bring it to school in his/her pocket. Tessa wanted to write her own poem, which was entitled "My Favorite Things." It was a hoot. And yes, there were exclamation points. The last line was "And for the big finish, Hearts!"

She says the funniest things, like when I told her I liked the picture she drew for me (she draws pictures of hearts and flowers with "I Love You Mommy" all over them, like every single day), she said, "I'm glad you feel that way, because I worked really hard on it." She's never even seen American Idol, but when Matthew got a Happy Meal microphone from McD's, she drew a very detailed picture of herself onstage singing, with groups of kids in the audience cheering her on, saying "Amazing!" and "Yea!" and "Cool!"

Matthew has a lot of good things going on too, like how he's voraciously reading. This is the kid who thought he couldn't read at the beginning of this school year, and now he's reading about physics and astronomy. And Pippi Longstockings :). He's totally into the life of Albert Einstein and he's really trying to understand the theory of relativity. He has a better intuitive grasp of physics than I do (but that's not saying much). Not surprising. He could already add and subtract in his head WAY better than I can. He navigates the web like a pro, looking for Pokemon websites. He isn't into the cards at all; he's all about the video games and how to make use of the best strategies. Did you know there's a Wikipedia-like site just for Pokemon? He found it himself, and studies it like he's researching his dissertation.

And me, I'm walking again, for the first time in years. I've been put off a bit by all the pollen in the air, which makes me wheeze and I have to cut my walks short, but after three weeks, my ass is actually a better approximation of what it used to be. This was a big project, Project Take Back My Body, and I'm determined to stem the tide of middle-age spread.

Oh, and I got carded buying beer in the grocery store the other day :D. Almost 41 years old, and I got carded! The girl handed me back my ID and said, "You don't look that old!" Ha, so I guess that despite the fact that I feel about a hundred and twelve, I apparently look under 21. That's good stuff.