G: "My dad is 58."
Me: "Yep, he is."
G: "When he turns 60 he's going to die."
Me: "That's a terrible thing to say, he's not going to die for a long, long time."
G: "It's just nature mom.  We're born, we live, and then we die.  Just like stars.  I learned that Wednesday at 10 pm on the Science Channel.  Question everything."
Me: "You are banned from TV."

***

Ed walked by me and headed for the one bathroom with a fan. That's the one by G's room. Not even 5 seconds later G runs towards his bathroom pulling his pants down. 
Me: "Um, bud, that one is occupied, go use the one in my room."
G lays on the floor at the bathroom door.
G: "Dad, come on, I've gotta go."
*Silence*
Me: "Son, just go use the other one."
G: "No. This is my bathroom and this is where I must stay. I'm just gonna hold it."
Me: "Okay, well if you pee your pants you're cleaning it up."
G: "I'm tough, I can hold it. DAD! I can see you in there. I NEED TO GO."
*Silence for about three seconds*
G: "Oh no, I'm not gonna make it. I'm just not."
*Flush*
Ed opens the door. "Do you need something?"
G, barreling by his father: "I had to go pott...OH MY HECK P-U you stink!!! Why would you do that in my bathroom?"

King Cowlick

Uh oh, someone needs a haircut!  This child's head is full of cowlicks.  And he has so much hair.  SO much.  If it holds true that a male's tendency toward baldness comes from his mother's side then G has nothing to worry about.  With the exception of one or two I come from a long line of plenty o'hair on the headed males.  His actual hairline sits pretty far back already though so let's hope I'm right.

Most of the time I pay professional to cut G's hair.  Mostly because I'm too slow for his short attention span/patience.  I'm getting better but I'm nowhere near good enough.  I didn't feel like paying someone to do it this time so I tackled it.  And G moved his head so many freaking times when I had the clippers in a key spot that this is what we ended up with.  I swear, it is cut evenly on the top, that's just his cowlicks rearing their heads  I love it when his hair is longer on top but I can't handle it hanging over his ears.  I tried to leave it long on top but his sides are not cooperative with the left & right ear guides on a pair of clippers so it ended up as a semi-disaster.  I say semi because I've certainly done worse.

He doesn't care one bit if he's shaggy or bald.

Holy crap I love that toothless smile of his.

First snowfall of 2014...and how E "celebrated" it.

Wow, I woke up not so happy about the fact that it had snowed overnight. But the stars have since aligned for me. G's eyes lit UP when I opened his blinds this morning to wake him up. "SNOW!!! SNOW!!! MOM IT SNOWED!!!" No kidding? I hadn't noticed...

So then I had a 6 year old begging incessantly to go outside and play in the snow and I hadn't even had a cup of coffee yet. I have a bunkhouse to clean today and at least 5 hours of work to be done, plus now the trampoline will need to be disassembled and put away. So much work to do but...first snow, I can't deny him that! I had the 6 year old who kept opening the door to send the dog out, telling him, "It snowed Gunner, it snowed!" Gunner apparently thought G was telling him to go chase a bird because every time he'd take a flying leap off the porch and run into the woods like a dog on a mission. So now I had a soaking wet dog. I wish I had his excitement but new cold, wet weather = stiff, stiff joints and a bad attitude for me and I was not happy to walk out to the satellite dishes in my pajamas to sweep snow off of them.

Then at about 7:30 am E came walking through the door with a big grin on his face. He'd left only about an hour earlier to go hunting so I knew something was up. Sure enough, there was a nice big 5x5 whitetail buck in the back of the truck. He only left it until the 2nd to the last day of season. Totally worth all the others he'd passed up until now. He has tomorrow left to find his elk but between my deer, his deer, and the want/waste deer that F&G gave him the other day, we're good to go.

Gunner loves him some dead animals.  He even grabbed hold of the tongue and tried to help pull it off the 4 wheeler.

*Lightbulb moment*

Let me dress this child in his brand spanking new snow clothes and he can hang out outside with you while you hang your big 'un.  And I'll just sit here in the warm house and get some of my mountain of work done whilst still wearing my pajamas. 

Here, take the dogs too why don't you?

Oh yeah!

Happy Halloween!

Who is the fool who offered to carve the pumpkins if they did the dirty work of cleaning them out?  Oh yeah, that was me.  I got G all excited with stencils of Darth Vader and Yoda.  Too bad I suck at this and those are pretty advanced carvings.  I gave up, after stabbing my finger, and I had him pick out some more basic stencils.  If you look at the scary one you can see my sharpee outline of Yoda.  It looks like some kind of bad ass tribal tattoo, right?  The owl was the only one that could "cover" Vader so we went with that one too.    

We busted Gunner the dog eating the stems off the tops.  And then I discovered, in a pile of dog vomit, the remnants of the tealight candles that had been in the owl.  Dumbass dog.

He hopped right into the first group of kids he saw.  Was he invited?  Not necessarily.  Did he fit in?  Totally.  Last year he didn't even last an hour.  This year?  Two hours.  That bucket was filled to the brim when he climbed back into the car.  This neighborhood is fantastic.  Not only is everyone friendly (children and adults alike) but they are very generous.  Some streelights would be nice but, well, yeah.  Next year we'll have to make sure G and his body guard have some lights on their person instead!

G was told to be polite and respectful.  So he walked down driveways and to sidewalks, etc., not on people's lawns.  He said thank you to everyone, though he did have to be reminded a time or two.  What E found most annoying was the amount of talking that G did.  He liked to ask people if they have pets and what their pets names are, etc. and he likes to tell people about his pets...and his lost tooth...and the tooth fairy bringing him a new Lego Star Wars book...and on and on and on.  E wouldn't have minded so much but G would then run to catch back up to the other kids...and E would have to run behind him.  Bwahahahahahahahaha.

Maybe we should work a little more on stranger danger?

As seems to be tradition, we went to Pizza Hut when we were done trick or treating.  That was a disaster/triumph.  The waitress took the order for cheese breadsticks, a large pizza, and G's personal pan pizza.  We wait...wait...wait.  And our pizza shows up.  E, rather annoyed already says, "What happened to the breadsticks I ordered?"  Uh...oops, she forgot about them.  Then she tells us that her manager took G's pizza to another table so they have to make him a new pizza.  E tells her she might as well cancel the breadsticks but she says she'll give them to us at no charge, natch, so I said yes please because cheese breadsticks are so good reheated.  And G's pizza as well.  While waiting for poor G's pizza she saw that we were having to pick stuff off our pizza so G could eat something.  So she came over and offered us dessert for free.  I looked, I wasn't too interested in what they had to offer so I declined.  She came back and said, "Oh I forgot to mention our new Toll House cookie."  Say what?  Like a big ol' Tollhouse cookie?  Yes, hot from the oven.  Well that we've got to try.  That was worth all the aggravation (even if E didn't touch it).  G and I ate ourselves sick on that thing.  Then his pizza showed up and he ate one piece and declared himself full.  The best part was right after his pizza came out and she brought out...the small order (not family size as we'd originally ordered) of plain breadsticks.  I thought E's head was going to explode.  Yes, he's a cheese hater...but pizza and breadsticks are an exception to his hatred.  We were all full by that time anyway so I reminded him that we don't have to pay for them and that it was time to go.  He left begrudgingly.

So the moral of the story is...feed E before he walks around neighborhoods chasing a 6 year old.  And never, ever mess up his order or you suffer the wrath of the cranky old man.  But G and I made out like bandits because we finished off that Toll House cookie pizza and the breadsticks for breakfast this morning.  Oh yes, we did.