Thursday, April 25, 2013

Fun with Anthony!

When I'm stuck for something to write about I can always count on my son for material.

Anthony continues to delight me with his  laugh out loud antics. Oh it's all laughter over here, yes it is. Nothing but knee slappin' good times! Yesterday he came inside with a large wooden pole that was previously used as a door jam for our old sliding door. Since we no longer have use for the pole, Anthony told me he was going to make the world's most awesome pinata smasher with it. He was headed for the garage as he was saying this and immediately the thought entered my mind that the world's most awesome pinata smasher, according to Anthony, may include putting nails into it, so I said to him, "dear and wonderful son of mine, what exactly are you going to do to make this the world's most awesome pinata smasher" and he said, "oh, I'm gonna put nails in it." Do you see how well I know my son? Although, let's face it, anyone reading this post probably could have guessed the same thing - he's not exactly a puzzle, is he? Call me crazy, but something about the whole idea of hundreds of nails sticking out of a wooden pole seemed dangerous to me so I told him no, he would not be able to make the world's most awesome pinata smasher.

With his nails in a wooden pole idea shot down Anthony moved onto more productive things. He grabbed my kitchen blender and about fifty sheets paper and went into his bedroom. Greg was home by this point and glanced up at me with a look of concern on his face. I told him about the previous pinata smasher idea and then he looked at me like, oh, okay, so whatever he's doing with that blender is an improvement over the last idea. This is how it goes with Anthony. He comes up with so many ridiculous ideas that eventually whatever it is he has finally settled on seems normal.

It turns out he was blending water and paper and flower seeds together. He made little balls with this concoction and then let them dry over night. This morning he placed the dried up paper balls out in our back yard where they will sprout wild flowers all over the place. This is a real thing. He read about it on the Internets and after he told me what he was doing I was kind of grateful because our backyard needs a little sprucing up and I had no intention making that happen.

Now don't go getting all jealous of me. It's not all fun and games over here with Anthony. Would you like to know the most horrific part of my day with him? Math time. If I die of a heart attack I know exactly when and where it will occur - in my kitchen, with Anthony's math book clenched in hands, at approximately 10:30 on a weekday morning. And when the ambulance comes to take me away, Anthony will be sitting at the table still trying to figure out 3 times 4 and telling everyone within ear shot that I never taught him his times tables and when one of his sisters points out that yes, I did teach him, he'll move onto his next excuse which is that he has short term memory loss and he can't help it, he just can't remember anything. This is our routine. Me teaching him something and thinking he's got it and then three minutes later when I ask him to do a problem showing what he just learned he looks at me and asks if I'm sure I taught him this and when I nearly explode he tells me I shouldn't get mad because even though it seems far fetched, he really thinks he has short term memory loss, which is why ( according to him) he should never, ever go back to school.

Oh look, it's almost like I wrote a real post here, minus an introduction and conclusion, but who needs any of that. I'm tired. Good night.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...


he is truly unique and leaves an indelible mark on you...
and you can get all caught up in your day and your life
and the mundane and the ordinary and then you see
something called GARDEN IN A BAG and you think of Anthony and you realize that if we all lived like anthony
the world would be a much better place...

Tiffany said...

So good to finally hear from you! Anthony stories are my favorite but so are Maggie stories... :0) Whatever you say is always my favorite.
I definitely want to make flower seed paper balls. Sounds like such a great idea. Oh, and as far as dying while doing math with Anthony, I may do the same while doing school, any school with Joe.

Terri said...

Tell Anthony to start making those and selling them. I seriously received that for a gift, except it was a square and not a ball.

The world's most awesome pinata smasher sounds like a super good idea!

Julie said...

I want some paper seed balls!! I don't think I'd get as addicted to them as I am to cookie dough balls though!