The Foorce

As you may have gleaned from the Monday Minute this week, James made his own list of resolutions this year. He worked on it completely solo, and after reading them I was left smiling, and as expected, scratching my head too. Next to each resolution is the exchange that followed, but the list itself is published 100% unedited.

For 2013, James resolves to (I wrote this at the top of his paper):

1. get more sleep. (“Good idea!”)

2. not play too many video games all day. (“You don’t play that many as is.” “On my ipod.” “Maybe you could change it to watch less youtube.” “Nah.”)

3. clean the tables and chairs outside. (“Why?” “Because it’s my favorite chore.”)

4. vacuum my room. (“Want to go do that now?” “Nah.”)

5. to eat more healthy food, like popcorn. (“Popcorn is pretty healthy for a snack. What about for a meal?” “Ramen noodles.” “No.” “Yeah, ramen noodles are junk. Probably just sushi.”)

6. play nice with my brothers and sisters. (“That’s a good one.” “And they should play nice with me too.”)

7. to try a new medium size water slide. (“Where?” “At the beach.” “Maybe we can go down one together!” “Maybe Margaret will go with you.” “She’s not tall enough.” “I think I’m not too tall yet either.”)

8. to dive into the shallow end of a swimming pool because it’s safer. (“No it’s not, it’s actually dangerous to dive in the shallow end.” “But not dangerous like that deep end, right?” “The deep end lets you dive in so you don’t smash your head.” “The deep end lets you sink to the bottom.”)

9. learn some new tennis skills (” Good thing you started lessons again. What skills?” “You know, overhand, backhand, my serve… that kind of stuff.” “How about hitting the ball back and forth two times?” “Yeah, that’s a good one, mom!”)

10. to fix my Mario Kart track again because Adam broke my goomba piece. (“He broke it again?!” “Yeah, darn…” “Stop letting him play with it – call me if he comes in there and touches it.” “He said he would fix it after.”)

11. do snowboarding (“What?!” “Do snowboarding.” “James, you don’t even like snowtubing, how about that first.” “Nah.” “Snowboarding is like snowtubing but standing on a board.” “Oh…” “Maybe we should cross this off because you already have 10 things.” “I’ll just save it for later.” “Deal.”)