Last Sunday, we were weeding the new garden while The Elliott puttered around not collecting the M&M filled eggs we had scattered about.  Soon he remembered Daddy's lesson about the line at the end of the driveway which he had been repeatedly instructed never to cross alone.  

This line, it called to him.  

Its siren song blinded him to stern Daddy glares and deafened him to the deep, dangerous "noooooooo" rumbling from my lips.  In fact, it almost seemed as though my "nooooooo" was being heard as "yeeeeeees", or perhaps being twisted into some comical tune to accompany his trip, judging from the smile that slithered on to his face as he shuffled deliberately towards the road.  That smile can be seen to the right.

We delivered him to the third attic stair for a 60-second time-out, which he did not like.  Unfortunately, the frustration of the time-out did not appear to connect in his mind with the line at the end of the driveway at all.  After the third time-out, we gave up and fed him lunch.  

From the way I have treated my parents from time to time, I have always known, at least on an academic level, that there would be painful moments in my relationship with my son.  But book learnin' never prepares you for actual experience.  As silly as it may sound, the open disregard and knowing defiance he showed me on Sunday was physically painful.  I felt so helpless.  Lord knows what he'll be able to do when he can form sentences!

At least he also makes faces like this to salve the wounds.

 

 

Most people spend a good portion of their early life trying to figure out what they're supposed to be doing.  Quite unwittingly,  Sarah and I have managed to save the Elliott the trouble.  

My mother is a teacher, Sarah's mother is a teacher (in training), my dad's father was a professor and Vice President of the University of Minnesota, and we just learned last month that Sarah's grandfather was a founding father of the biggest school district in Las Vegas.  If you draw out the Vin diagram for that, you get:

Teacher Teacher 

Teacher Teacher  

Teacher genes from all sides.  You're doomed kiddo.  Don't even try to fight it, son.  It didn't work for me either.  Might as well get the jacket with the elbow patches right now.

We knew the Elliott's maternal great grandfather was a prominent principal, and we figured he was pretty special since we were in Vegas attending the dedication of Jay W. Jeffers Elementary, but until the speeches started, we had no idea just how special.  Over the course of 40-odd years, he played a critical role in the creation of the Las Vegas school district and helped develop one of the fastest growing school networks in the United States.  It was enlightening and inspiring.  

Actually, I only know that it was enlightening because Sarah filled me in later.  I got a thorough tour of the entire school (which is outstanding, by the way) as I was busy chasing the boy on his quest for his personal Jeffer's path.  20-month-olds are not particularly interested in speechifying.  

They are, however, interested in giant horny toads.  Can you blame him?  If I could have fit in my carry on, it would be in our back yard right now.

 

 

HOLY COW!  Is this thing updated?

Well sort of.  I made a promise to myself when I started this that I would work very hard not to blog constantly about how I wasn't blogging.  But, when a good excuse comes along, you really should milk it.  You see, after 7 faithful years of service, our ancient computer died.  

Ok, so it didn't completely die.  In a scene reminiscent of the classic Monty Python "I'm not dead yet" sketch, I spent one long, harrowing evening watching my computer sputter and collapse and reboot of it's own accord, over and over, trying to remember when last I had burned the Elliott's pictures to disc.  Finally, it just locked up and wouldn't restart.  For a week, I didn't dare try to start it in case the hard drive had only one shot left at recovery, because I am profoundly stupid about the inner workings of computers.  Fortunately, Sarah didn't know I was deliberately not starting it, and she started it right up.   Although we still couldn't write anything on my big hard drive and the computer would randomly shut down from time to time, I was able to burn off the last 20 months of pictures.   

I had just started my grand campaign with Sarah to drop a bill and buy our next great grossly-overpowered e-mail machine, which would allow me to not update MUCH faster and prettier, when a miracle happened.  Dylan, 1/2 of our fair web hosting team and patron saint of diseased electronics, came to visit.  He laid his hands upon its worn and dented case and lo, it did riseth from the grave.  When I say he laid on hands, I mean he really did absolutely nothing except touch the dang thing, and now it works again.  I'm sure Windows XP did something magic during all those restarts it put itself through, but it still seemed pretty miraculous to me.  I'd thank you, Dylan, but I was getting really excited about a new computer.  Stupid patron saints!  So that was a week ago, but then we planted a big garden, and then it was 35th birthday, and then I went skiing with my folks, and then... 

Well, anyway, this week Sarah is on ANOTHER business trip, this time in New Jersey!  That seems as good a reason as any to update, and since she doesn't carry around a wallet full of pictures, she can show this cute, relatively new picture off to her fellow business types.  

Tune in tomorrow for: the Tale of Jay W. Jeffers Elementary, or Why The Elliott is doomed to an ascetic life of community service and poverty.

Thanks for waiting!

-The Great Procrastinator