BITCH

Friday, November 17, 2006

bill and billyism

It's been a long time since I've had a "Billyism" to post, but this one cracked me up. (And he's getting so "grown up" these days I guess they should be "Billism"s now.

For reasons I can't go into on this blog, Sarah has been living with her mother for the past month or so. The other day, while cleaning off the table after dinner, Billy said, "Y'know, now I know what it's like to be an 'only child'".

I said, "But Ian's living with us for the winter, and he's your stepbrother."

Billy looks at me and says, "Yeah, but he was from another BATCH!"

Cracked me up and I had to admit it's true. Ian is more like another parent to him. We did discuss it though, and he decided that being an 'only child' has advantages and disadvantages, but that overall he really likes it.

I asked about having enough friends, and he said he has Alex, the kids next door and across the street (who are younger but love Bill), and his school buddies, Jacob, Jesus and Javier. The last three stayed over for his birthday party in September.

I don't think I would have wanted to be an only child, but Bill seems to be thriving on it. He comes home every day, sits down, does his homework before he even asks to turn on the tv, or Xbox. He helps out around the house without complaint. Of course getting him to clean his room is a problem, but he's so rarely in it that it doesn't get that bad.

He goes to karate without complaint now. He didn't used to like to go, but now that he and Sarah (when she manages to show up) are in different classes again, he's getting even better at a faster rate than he was before. It's getting so he looks like the other kids in class, with long, deep stances, straight shoulders and lots of power. He's going to be amazing by the time he makes black belt.

And he loves his "parent time". He and Karl had been spending a lot of time together anyway, playing Magic, video games, and such. Ian's been taking him with him when he goes shopping and they're getting to know each other better also. And he asked me to start reading him story at night again. I hadn't been doing that for the last year or so, he's been doing books on tape, but he said he missed it. So we've started reading the 12th book in the "Unfortunate Events" series. I just bought the 13th, and last, but Bill stopped after 11, so I have to read the 12th first.

Well, there's the bell. Time to go help out in our "late homeroom" where the kids will vote for Homecoming Queen and King. sigh...



The comments are even better

Bonnie said...

LOL!!! There were times I would have wanted to be an only child. I keep telling mom she should have given Linda to the neighbors and stopped after me :-). But then we would have missed out on a lot as we, as a family, were each others best friends and even now - as OLD as we are we still go to each other before anyone else. Some kids thrive, as Bill does as an only child, though. Perhaps he felt intimidated by the older sister with such a different personality from the sunshine, laughing and loving Bill.

2:49 PM

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Bernadette said...

I wanted a baby brother so bad that I threated to run away from home if I didn't get one. In my teen years, I asked my Mom if we could bring him back. She crossed her legs and said "NO WAY"!

5:54 PM

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Victoria said...

Bonnie, Not only do all his FRIENDS names start with "J", his three half brothers are Jared, James and Jacob.