Long post for a long weekend.

Weekend recap:
Friday we didn't leave the house because of the snow. Jesse and I played outside until it was dark. We were so unprepared for snow. Jesse doesn't even have any boots, so his feet were soaked. I had the comfort food covered though. I made a big pot of potato soup for dinner.

Saturday Jesse played outside in the snow with some of the neighbor kids until SkooterPie witnessed him throwing snowballs at the heads of two little girls. When I stuck my head out the door to yell at him, he was running away from a neighbor's yard with a garden decoration in his hands. Taking things that aren't his would become a theme for the weekend. Later Jesse and I went to Ian's birthday party at the Cordova skating rink. I skated without busting my ass or any other body part this time. We rushed home from the party, and I turned the TV on in time to catch the last two minutes of the Tigers' game against Marshall. We won by 10. Yay! Then I hurried to Schneesel's to buy a dessert for the neighborhood association's spaghetti dinner at 5:30. There were quite a few people there, including several of Jesse's classmates. That's all it took for kid pandemonium to take place. Jesse has this interesting idea lately that he can just ignore a clear and direct order from me, like "Jesse, sit your butt down in the chair and don't move." Maybe my orders are unreasonable, and I should say something more like: "Jesse, don't break anything." or the even more vague "Don't embarrass me." Oh, who am I kidding? Those are pretty damn unreasonable to an 8-year-old.

Sunday was the birthday party, and things went awry right away. Schneesel's called at 11:30 asking if I was ever going to come and get the cake I had ordered. "Yes, at noon today, like I said in my order." "No," the lady said. "You mean noon yesterday." So after picking up our day old cake, we went to Huey's for lunch. Let me back up a minute to add that Jesse had been acting terrible all day (party excitement, I guess). I wanted him to take a shower that morning, and when I saw him standing by his dresser in his bedroom, I told him not to bother getting dressed because I wanted him in the shower in a few mintues. I then went in my bedroom and got dressed. When I came out, I saw his pajamas lying on his bedroom floor. I don't even know how to describe the next few moments (possibly because I experienced a rage blackout). I hunted down my fully clothed son (he even took the time to put on his shoes-I have to wonder if he has a death wish) and ordered him to get naked and get into the shower before I beat his ass. As he ran for the shower, SkooterPie called out "Oh my God, he's so naked and skinny!" Well, Jesse was just looking for an excuse to turn the tide of sympathy in his direction and launched into a full-on "Wah! Daddy's making fun of me! He hurt my feelings!" crying fit. Unfortunately for him, his mother is not so easily distracted, and he still got berated for blatantly disobeying my clear and direct order not to get dressed. Which brings me back to Huey's. Where he continued to act like the worst kid in the world.

Then during the party, I glance over to see one of the children throwing a fit by the Coke machines. Thank goodness there was at least one little tattletale in the group to tell me what the heck was going on. Apparently the kid stuck $5 in a change machine, and when the quarters started falling out, a bunch of kids reached in and grabbed all the change away from him. My child was one of those kids. Before I could sort it all out, Jesse had spent at least 50 cents of that money. I recovered $3 in quarters from the little theives involved, and SkooterPie ponied up another dollar for him, and I confiscated the stuff Jesse had bought and gave those items to the kid. But I was mortified about it all and made all the kids involved apologize to the boy. As soon as his mom arrived to pick him up from the party I told her the whole story, including that my son was involved. She was very nice about it, but ... God! I was so pissed at Jesse, and he was getting to eat birthday cake. SkooterPie and I yelled at him the whole way home.

I am so glad to be back at work today.

I think it's very cool that (a) the archaeology team that discovered the first Eyptian tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 84 years is from the University of Memphis and that (b) the coach of the Olympic snowboarding team, which has already won several medals, is a Memphis kid. Just thought I'd share.