Day Three - Return of the Children

The children were returned to the loving arms of Southern Man mid-afternoon and showed off their newest gifts - teen son had converted over $500 in Guitar Center gift certificates (yes, Southern Man and his parents and his ex and her dad all had the conspiracy thing working here) into a fine new guitar and amp - but soon (and not surprisingly) the two teens scattered to the homes of nearby friends, leaving Southern Man's precious nine-year-old daughter in charge. So we went errand-running, which included a stop at the local beauty parlour where she parted with a bit of her Christmas cash for a manicure. That girl is growing up. So we spent a fairly casual and unstructured evening relaxing amid the post-Christmas clutter at Casa Southern Man. There was a bit of a fuss at Southern Man's refusal to release the basket of "house gifts" (a few board games and several movies) before Sunday, but Southern Man has these easily-bored rascals for more than a week and he's playing his entertainment cards as slowly as possible. Besides, he's hoping that the House Season One DVD set will arrive in the mail today. Of course, what they really want is Lost Season Four. Southern Man may deal those out one disc at a time over the course of the next week. Besides, he's easily three seasons behind; the kids have watched his Season One - Two - Three DVDs countless times but Southern Man hisself hasn't had the time. Maybe it will snow or something and we'll have a Lost marathon.

On a side note, teen son and I attempted to take down nine-year-old daughter's trampoline. Attempted is the key word here. We could not get the main ring apart to save our lives. Oh well, it was fairly torn up anyway so we tossed most of it in the bin, and Southern Man will put a new one up (probably at The Land) sometime next summer.