I would have written more this past week (or maybe that should read: I would have written this past week), but with two children about to re-enter the school system and a walking baby (seen here climbing on a box and grabbing pieces of bacon off a plate on the counter), it's not like I've had a lot of time to entertain the lot of you. Go get jobs or something. Also, I've had two essays and two books to finish by the end of the week. Right now measuring 90% of one essay and 50% of one book finished. Naturally, I have bought my way back into the favour of the educational gods and purchased a two month course extention, bringing my six month course to ten months in length.

Procrastination? Me? Ok, sure. A little bit, I'll admit. Some late nights playing MMORPGs definitely fit into the mix. Then there was that little problem with hating every bit of the course and trying to desperately find something - anything, please God, anything - to take me away from doing it.

Maven spoke and God answeredeth. And God saideth " Go forth and sell thine house. " So Maven sold her house. Then God saideth: "Go forth and moveth". So Maven gotteth on her yoga pants and put in a DVD. "To a new house, Maven. Stupid little..." Annoyed, God rose a hand to smite The Maven, then God's wife, Mrs. God (you didn't think he was single, did you? He's God.) gently putteth his hand down and made him some cocoa. God sipped his drinketh and decided on another plan to teach Maven the errors of her ways.

So God created a tree, which greweth and greweth and greweth. And he beckoned Intrepid into that tree, and beckoned the tree branch to breaketh. And Intrepid fell and broke his leg. And God said to the Maven 'Art thou happy now, my child? Thou shall not have time to work on thine course, and thou shalt fail.'

And Maven learned her lesson, and purchased another extention for $155, and nearly criedeth. And God knew that he had done his work and taught one of his children an important life lessoneth.: Thou shall not procrastinate... eth. And so he sent Mrs. God out shopping for something pretty to wear for a celebratory dinner out. Somewhere fancy, but not too fancy, and mindeth the amount of wine you drink this time because no dress is going to keep you looking like a Goddess if you're falling all over thine self. And all was right again.

Anyway, enough scripture writing. Intrepid started grade 5 today on crutches.

Grade 5.

On Crutches.

If someone were to tell me a few years ago that I would have a child in grade 5, I wouldn't believe it. Falsehood, I would say. My babies will stay babies forever, I would say, except that they will learn to speak, change themselves and sleep through the night. They will not do things like go to grade 5 wearing camouflage pants and a skater hoodie. My babies will be stylin', but not like big boys. No. They will wear Osh Kosh and Gymboree their entire lives and stay cute and little and cuddly. So there.

Now, if that same person were to tell me that one of my 'babies' would break his leg, I would say 'Yeah. Probably' and mean it. I figured we'd have at least one broken bone around here. Why not a leg? So no, I'm not terribly surprised that we have a child going to school on crutches. The only shocker is that it's Intrepid, the quietest of the three. I was expecting cracked limbs in kindergarten with him. Now that he's a fairly calm ten-year-old, I'm somewhat surprised.

But he's there, in all his glory, wearing the clothes mommy bought to bring out his coolness, and sporting some chick-magnet crutches. Apparently he's already sent some minions to the office for ice for his knee. That's how mama raised her dungeon keeper.

It feels surprisingly good to be back on some kind of schedule. Having the day dictated by the government's school schedule leaves me feeling oddly secure. I know when he leaves and I know when he comes back. In that time I'm down to two gremlins. As of next week, I'm down to one twice per week as Gutsy terrorizes his teachers yet again at preschool. If they thought the four-year-old Gutsy was overwhelming, just wait until they meet the nearly five-year-old one: he's more subtle, but he can sucker punch you in the kidney like it's nobody's business. He did it to me last week and brushed it off as 'pretending to be a ninja'.

I don't dare mess with ninjas.

Also my 31st birthday is in two days. If I was old last year, what am I this year? I vote:

dilapidated

adjective

1. Falling to ruin: ramshackle, ruinous, rundown, tumbledown. See better/worse.
2. Showing signs of wear and tear or neglect: bedraggled, broken-down, decaying, decrepit, dingy, down-at-heel, faded, mangy, rundown, scrubby, scruffy, seedy, shabby, shoddy, sleazy, tattered, tatty, threadbare. Informal tacky². Slang ratty. Idioms: all the worse for wear, gone topotseed, pastcurehope. See better/worse.