Sunday Adventures with Anthony

Went to the 7:30 a.m. Mass, just me and him, because he was an alter server . It was his first time and he clearly had no idea what he was doing, as evidenced by his deer in the headlights look through the entire Mass.

He begged me to take him to McDonald's afterward, because he thought he had done such a bang up job (of standing at the alter and looking petrified)and said he deserved a treat. We sat staring at the drive thru menu screen for a couple of minutes while Anthony repeated the words, "um, I'm still deciding," over and over again, until he finally told me he didn't actually want anything now, but by lunchtime he would want something and so I could take him back then.

When we got home, Greg left with Kate and Jane for the 9:30 Mass and I was glad to be home in relative quiet, until I heard Anthony screaming and carrying on in a manner that led me to believe he was nearing death, and then I wasn't so glad to be home. His Nintendo ds broke and he just got it for Christmas and the world was ending and oh my goodness, how would he survive, I mean how was he going to go to the bathroom without his ds, which was where he happened to be when he found that it wasn't working.

I went in my room and laid on my bed and wondered. I'm not going to say what I wondered about. I just did a lot of wondering. I laid there while Anthony sobbed and screamed and I just figured the best thing to do was not say a word and let him deal with it by himself, which he did finally do.

I heard him pick up the phone and call a number and press a couple of other numbers, until he got the right person, and then I heard him say, "Hi, um, my ds isn't working but when I plug it in it goes on, but the screen is blank and I want to know why it's doing that. I just got it for Christmas. Why is it doing that?" And then he said a couple of other things and finally, "well, I don't have an email number, but my mom has an email number, do you want hers because she is home and I can ask her for her email number. Do you want it now? Hello? You want her email number now? Now?" I couldn't take it anymore and yelled out "address, email address, not email number," and then I got up and grabbed the phone and gave the Nintendo guy my email number and it turns out they are going to fix the thing for free.

Anthony had gotten the number for Nintendo off of the back of his ds. He was pretty proud of himself. It's amazing how resourceful he can be under certain circumstances. This a kid who consistently forgets to wash his hair when he is in the shower, but whatever, it's all about priorities.

After all of that excitement it was finally time to head back to McDonald's where he happily ate like a pig and consumed enough calories to start pestering me to bring him to the pool, which I agreed to do, because I guess when all is said and done, I can just never get enough time with Anthony.

No one else in the family wanted to go with us, so we headed off and after swimming for exactly two minutes he told me he was thirsty and if he didn't get something to drink he wouldn't be able to swim and we would have to go home. But I was relaxing and didn't want to go home, so I ignored him. I figured maybe he would be resourceful again and find a way to get himself a drink, which he did. It involved finding a glass behind the outdoor bar at the pool, (an outdoor bar that most likely hasn't been used in the past decade) going to the bathroom and rinsing it out with hand soap and filling it up with bathroom water. Hey, it's been several hours and he still isn't sick.

The water pleased him enough that we managed to stay a while longer and then we came home and had dinner and at seven p.m. he told me he had a book report due. Oops. He's been on vacation for the past week and half and he thought that was the perfect time to tell me about it. I told him he must be mistaken because I had checked his book bag last week and there was nothing in it indicating he had any homework. And he said "oh, well, I guess I left the assignment at school."

I had done a fair job all day of letting him solve his own problems so I decided to run with it and I said, "well, you're going to have to figure out what to tell the teacher, because I think you may have purposely left your assignment at school and I am not getting you out of this one." To which he said, "oh, I'll just go ask Hunter what we were supposed to do, he did his last week."

He headed down to the Hunter's house and asked him exactly what he was supposed to do for the report and came home and did his work and said, "see, no problem, my teacher will never know I almost didn't do it," but I'm guessing she might because it's almost as much of a bang up job as his first attempt at alter serving.

Anthony, I really love you, but you wear me out in so many little ways. My hope for you is that you grow up and get married and have a son just like you, because only then will you realize how exhausting you are. But really, I do love you...even when I got that phone call today from the nurse telling me you had gotten in trouble for farting really loud, over and over and over again, I still love you, maybe even a little more than I did yesterday.