Chair Surfing

I always thought office chairs were...well, for the office.  But apparently when you leave one out in the garage to cart off to Goodwill --a teenager will assume it's a mode of transportation.  Which is perhaps why perhaps I should not have "parked" it in the garage while I was getting up the gumption to go and donate it.

A few days after leaving the thing in the garage I catch a glimpse of Connor's knee ...

[warning: Gross Photo Ahead]

And when I asked him what had happened he just got that grin. It's the one he gets right before I find out he's been playing rooftop football or tarp jumping off tool sheds.  That grin.  I counterpoint another grin back at him, the one that says 'what freak show did you involve yourself in this time, kid??' Then he comes clean.

Turns out he was "Chair Surfing".  I didn't even know you could do that.  But of course Connor did.  And he and his buddy Severin.

(why are we not surprised Sev was involved here?) decided it would be really fun to "surf" the chair down the driveway at high speeds rolling towards the basketball hoop and then use it to make an excellent jump shot.  They figured that by the time they got to the hoop they'd be much higher to the rim thus putting a real jump start into their jump shot.  Turns out all it did was increase the height and speed at which they fell from said rim onto the crusty unyielding pavement.

Apparently from the looks of Connor's knee, the jump shot wasn't so excellent.  He's now a retired chair surfer.  And the chair...it's now safely down at Goodwill.  So for any of you wanna-be chair surfers-- it's down at Goodwill waiting for you...and it's bargain priced!

Dodgy Attire

A word to all visitors to the Skillman home:

If you choose to wear certain items of apparel promoting the neighboring arch rival team of my beloved Anaheim Angels,
we will confiscate or alter said garment before you are allowed to enter our home.

The "D" word is a big no-no around here.  Our home is a haven from such unsavory things.

A Little Merit Badge Q & A

After a few death defying days of Spring Break Shenanigans,
I decided to rein Connor and his buddy Sev back in from their dare-devil stuntfest by forcing them to work on some long neglected, half-finished Merit Badges.  Having to put pencil to paper was definitely not what these boys had in mind for any part of their school holiday, but I insisted because I was getting desperate for a break from their crazed antics and spare their lives with a much needed injury-free day. 

I should have enticed them inside with video games, but I did not. 
I should have persuaded them inside with food, but I did not. 
My plan for a low key afternoon was much more productive.  And this was a very bad idea.

Let's just say boys do not like to do anything that resembles school work if they're on holiday.  And they will definitely let you know...

Check out Connor's brief but direct answer on his Family Life Merit Badge Worksheet...

Ah, Family Life!  You try to save a kid's life and this is what you get!

Back to Blogging

Somehow my blog got a little lot ignored over Spring Break.  Spring Break turned into the entire month of April and soon I  started getting phone calls from a bunch of my loyal readers who called just to say "hi".  Although I could tell most of you were really making sure I hadn't met with some untimely demise or got carted off to jail or something.  Which I haven't by the way--on either accounts.  But thanks for checking!  Truth be told, I just got lazy there for a minute.

Who knew our crazy antics would be missed?!

So I've finally logged back on and I will publish a bunch of posts that I just never got around to publishing.  Commence the Skuttlebutt! 
(I've added a new post below...)
 

Spring Break-Less

A miracle occurred around our house over Spring Break, the miracle being that no one ended up in the ER.  

Just a few hours into day #1, we soon realized that our decision to stay home and take it easy over Spring Break may not have been a wise move.  We quickly discovered this is a dangerous prospect because kids who stay home tend to get bored, and more particularly, the kids around our house like to stave off boredom by entagling themselves in bizarre and dangerous high adventure antics.  Within the first six hours of their vacation they tried their hand at two
never-before-seen sports...

Tarp Jumping off the tool shed:
I think Connor and Severin have been watching base jumping or something on some crazy x-games channel and wanted to give it a try.  Thank goodness they didn't try it off the barn roof and opted for the tool shed instead.  I thought for sure someone was gonna break their arm.  Luckily I don't think the boys ever summoned the courage to actually jump.  Whew!

And Pallet Racing:
Apparently skateboarding around the driveway isn't compelling enough.  The boys found an old pallet and attached a couple of skateboards underneath and then surfed it down the driveway.

 

The boys quickly learned that their erroneous assumption that a croquet stick would be a great makeshift rudder/brake was, quite frankly, beyond inadequate.  As was my decision to stand downhill in a small buffer zone off to the side for a little photo-op of their perilous pallet adventure.  

This was taken just as I realized there was no buffer zone and I had to leap into the gravel to spare my life:

Despite the fact that the croquet stick was useless both for steering and for braking, the cozy barbed-wire fence proved an excellent and fail-proof stop gap.

(uh, look how huge my shadow is! Holy Cow!

it appears as though I could use a little P90x.)

They made several runs until Connor's friend Severin suffered a classic pallet surfing injury.  The poor kid got his hand stuck in the slats which makes it quite difficult to exit the moving vehicle should it suddenly lurch to a stop upon impact with gravel.  After rocking back and forth for several minutes in the fetal position while squeezing his mashed up hand, Sev got up and announced he was officially retiring from their new-found sport.

 
...And to think this was just day ONE!  I was going to have to come up with a plan if these boys were going to survive the rest of the week unscathed.

Atomic Dare

I got an e-mail from my sister-in-law the other day relating the following story about Connor and his older cousin Tanner who is always trying to make a game out of every situation:

"Last night I dropped Tanner and Connor off at the youth fireside at the church. Tanner just happened to have two ATOMIC fireball candies in his pocket.

Just before the meeting started, Tanner says to Connor, "Let's put these in our mouths during the fireside and see who can keep it there the whole time."  

It was decided that the LOSER would have to stand up and stretch right in the middle of the meeting.  Connor was game.

Little did Tanner realize that Connor has a bionic tolerance for spice and heat! According to Nick who was sitting with them, Connor sat calmly with the fireball in his mouth, as if he was sucking on Cheerios. But Tanner looked visibly uncomfortable.  Tanner fidgeted, his face turned red, and he even broke into a SWEAT!!!!  All the while, Connor sucked on his fireball as if nothing was unusual.

In Tanner's words, "CONNOR PONED ME!"

(Tanner suffered through the entire fireball so he wouldn't have to stand up and stretch. He said it was one of the most horrible experiences of his life!)"

Perhaps the subject that sermon-filled evening should have been  
"Thou Shalt Not Propose a Dare at Church".  It's too bad Tanner didn't realize that since the age of two, Connor's favorite snacks have been Hot Cheetos & Hot Tamales.  Poor Tanner, a little "Know Thy Cousin" may have prevented the "hellfire and damnation" he experienced there on that church pew! 

Sealed for Freshness

Another prank inside the fridge.  This one was especially creepy.  Yes, even more lurid than being goosed by the thing just a few days ago.

This time Mitchell thought it would be extra disturbing to set it conspicuously on the top shelf after putting it in a Tupperware as if it were a piece of fried chicken he was saving to eat later.

While I'm used to seeing our infamous hand GUARDING leftovers in the fridge, I was definitely caught off guard to see the loathsome thing put in the refrigerator disguised as a leftover.

This was the grisly scene:

Seriously creepy.

He got me pretty good this time.  I actually let out an "AHHHH!"  (Thank goodness he didn't embellish it with salsa.)  After catching my breath from the initial shock, I let out a laugh and decided that after previous hand incident I posted last week, it was quite appropriate that Mitchell sealed it in a Tupperware for freshness.  Because the hand has certainly gotten mighty fresh these days. 

Groped by a Fridge

Mitchell's fake foam hand is at it again.  Somehow it found a new spot in the fridge in which to hide and wait for some unsuspecting victim to prank.  That victim turned out to be me.

I opened the fridge door and as I rummaged through the top shelf looking for some particular something the door slowly swung back into me.  That's when it happened.  I suddenly felt a hand on my, uhhh, how shall I say it, tush!  Hello Mr. Fridge!

Another creepy hand prank, only this time I feel slightly violated.  Never been groped by a fridge before.

Gee, thanks Mr. Fridge, I kinda like you too.
Now kindly remove your hand.

Uh, I CAN Read You Know

On a recent Skype call I suffered a couple of technical difficulties.

The first being that while I could see video, I couldn't hear any sound.

The second being that the technicality was being blamed on my supposed old age.

I was trying to Skype with my granddaughter Kendra, as I often do.  She sits in her high chair while I try to amuse her with peek-a-boo and finger puppets--really important grandma stuff.  The problem was that while she could hear me, I couldn't hear anything on my end.  Admittedly, this was no major disaster since she's not even one yet and can't speak.  But my daughter Cheyenne likes to walk in and out of the room and join the conversation at times and she was certain the problem must be something idiotic on my end.  Determined to fix my little sound snafu, she began writing notes and then held them up to her computer's camera so I could read them.
Notes like:

• Mom check your volume setting
• Are you sure you checked your volume setting?
• Do you even know where your volume button is?

And even though I couldn't hear her, she could hear me so I responded out loud with answers like:

• Yes, I've checked it.
• Yes, I'm totally sure I checked it.
• Of course I know where the stupid volume button is.
• Chey, do you realize your texting me the hard way?

Cheyenne finally got exasperated and I heard the phone ring downstairs.  Soon Mitchell, my resident computer whiz, was tromping up the stairs--Chey had called him on his cell phone.  With his phone to his ear, talking to his sister, he came to my computer and peered at the screen.

That was when Cheyenne held up this scribbled bit:

In case it's too blurry, her note says:

"Hi Mitch Mom's getting Old"

Uh, hello, I'm right here and I can read!

Mitchell audibly responds (with me sitting right there) by saying "Yeah, I know" then scoots me off my chair, sits in front of my computer and clicks a few buttons and then suddenly all communication is miraculously restored.  

Unfortunately, what was not restored was my dignity as my age was harshly called into question and completely bludgeoned in the inquest.  

But at least now Cheyenne can hear me. 

So I wait for Mitch to head back down stairs and then I smile real wide.  I look at Chey on my computer screen and I move my mouth...

...I just don't make any sounds.
(score one for the old people.)

Firewood, Firearms, & Firemen

Animal lovers read at your own risk:  

The three F’s:

Firewood

Firearms

Firemen

All these very ominous words suspiciously start with the same letter as that perniciously troublesome word: “Father”.  

Is this chance?    I think not.

Last Saturday afternoon Chloe and I decided to spend the day at the local bookstore while the boys headed for the barn to cut and stack wood.  And that right there is where this little narrative goes wrong.  Right from the start, which is to say that Chloe and I leaving the boys on their own was our first mistake.  Male brains make way better decisions when estrogen is nearby and unfortunately on this Saturday, it wasn’t.

First, the firewood:  We needed some.  But the getting is not as labor intensive as you would imagine.  In the modern age, cutting and stacking wood is not what it used to be.  Mark uses his chainsaw while the boys man the gas-powered wood splitter.  Barely an ounce of sweat is produced by these activities.  Stacking the wood is another matter but we still don’t feel sorry for them.  Especially since I helped split and stack the incident-free weekend before.

Out behind are barn is plenty of wood, it just needs to be cut up.  There were a dozen large timber trees that Mark had gotten off a property that had just been thinned.  Mark would cut sections off the tree into rounds, roll them to Mitchell who’d split them, and toss them into a pile for Connor to stack.  How wrong can that go?

Wrong enough. 

At some point during Mark’s chain sawing, he cut through the tree and it looked as if it were starting to bleed.  He stopped the chainsaw, wondered if he’d cut himself and inspected his hands and legs.  Nothing wrong there.  He returned to cutting and more blood gushed from the tree.  Once the tree was sliced through he discovered a squirrel --or more accurately, two halves of a once whole squirrel, who made the unfortunate decision to take a cozy winter nap inside the tree right smack in the center of his cutting line. 

The boys decided the best plan of action would be to cremate the poor squirrel by piling up all the excess bark into a big mound, setting it on fire, and tossing in the upper and lower regions of their fallen comrade along with a jumble of associated guts. 

The bark pile was set ablaze with a brazen amount of gas, sprinkled with squirrel parts, lit with a match, and then they went back to work.

Soon more cutting and splitting ensued and once more another tree began to bleed.  Apparently our tree was a squirrel duplex and another cruel eviction had been served.  This time when the tree split in half they found its occupant miraculously alive yet horrifically mutilated beyond repair.  Now what?

Well according to testosterone this is where the second “F” comes in:  Firearms.

Mark went and got the gun.  Had estrogen been on the scene, any gaggle of girls would have been running away from the grisly scene to seek refuge in the house leaving the poor squirrel to meet its maker unassisted.  This is not the way of testosterone.  In sharp contrast, the boys were posturing as to who among them would be the best henchman to put the thing out of its misery.  Somehow Connor prevailed.  In some bizarre male bonding experiment a proud father loaded the gun and unleashed the weapon into his son’s hands.  Soon the deed was done.  Squirrel dead, young boy hopped up on adrenaline. 

One more for the crematorium, which was fully ablaze by this time.

With that, they set off back to work once more cutting and stacking.  They weren’t at it long when a few visitors showed up at the barn.  These visitors brought with them an enormous fire truck.  Yes, the third F: Firemen.

Mark looked up at the fully clad crew, put down his chain saw and said, “Let me guess…today is NOT a burn day.”

They smiled and nodded.

Mark has never been known for his fact-checking.  He had simply surveyed the valley surrounding our house, spotted several smoke plumes, and assumed it was a burn day.  Unfortunately it was only a burn day for the government.  So when the local fire department saw the smoke they jumped in their biggest firetruck and came to check things out (my theory is that perhaps they got a tip from an irritated neighbor who had had it with the copious amounts of chain-sawing, gun-firing, and fire making going on next door).  But soon they admitted they weren't really concerned about the now identified fire and that they were simply bored and this gave them something to do.

Meanwhile Connor got a little nervous as this was his first brush with the law (that we know about anyway) and was hoping the firefighters wouldn’t notice the dead carcasses in the fire--or the gun.  He was relieved when they finally left and he "wasn't arrested".

At the end of the day when Chloe and I returned nothing about their firewood shenanigans was ever mentioned.  But late that night, right before bed, we always ask our kids what their favorite part of the day was.  Connor couldn't contain his excitement over the days events any longer and bluntly stated,  

“I got to shoot an animal and the fire department showed up.”

And there you have it.  Quite a contrast to girls day at the bookstore.  When a Father's in charge anything can happen, and around here it usually does.