Some Pig

Why I Am Not a Stay-At-Home Mom

What's your thumb, Mama?

Why do we have thumbs?

What would happen if you didn't have a thumb on one hand?

What's late morning mean?

Why don't I see all my friends every day?

What's the biggest thing, Mommy?

How small is a germ?

Is a germ bigger than a cell?

Is a germ the teeniest, tiniest thing?

What's a stem?

What happens if you eat a stem?

Why can I throw the stem away?

What does 'disintegrate' mean? (Okay, I asked for that one, using that word in front of her)

What's a pit? (said of a cherry)

Do cherries grow on trees?

Do strawberries grow on trees?

Why not?

What's a seed?

Why can't you eat seeds?

If you eat a seed, why don't you get a tree growing out of your belly?

Daddy said if you eat a seed, you get a tree growing out of your belly.

Is watermelon made of water?

Why not?

Daddy says watermelon is made of water.  (Clearly I am going to have to have a chat with Warren)

Can you please read me a book?  (Note the 'please' - she's polite when she wants something!)

What's August?

When is it late summer?

Why won't I ever be as old as Amy?

Am I four and a half?  A quarter?  When am I four and a quarter?

What happens if I fall asleep? 

When are we going swimming?

Why do I have to take a nap? (Because *I* need one, that's why)

I don't want to be this name anymore.  I want to be another name.  I want to be Snow White, or Ariel, or Jasmine, or Cinderella and another princess that I know.  What would that be?  I know! It would be Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.  Please can I have a different princess name? (This from the girl who wasn't allowed princess anything for the first three years of her life)

When can we go swimming?

Why is it adult swim time?

What if a little kid jumped in the pool during adult swim?  What would they do?

Why?  Why is there adult swim?

What would happen if we went swimming and there weren't any lifeguards?

Whose bandaid is that?

What would happen if bandaids were old when you put them on?

What would happen if bandaids never got old?

Why can't I ask any more questions for ten minutes, Mommy?

***      ***      ***

In the interest of avoiding being tarred with the J.T. Leroy/James Frey brush, let me be the first to state that this list is recreated as best I can remember and may not, in fact, be an accurate representation of all the questions India asked me in one six-hour period, particularly as big chunks of that questioning occurred when I was driving and had to focus on what I was doing.  However, it is a fairly accurate representation of a small portion of a typical day.

It's A Hole In One! Or Something.

Guess what, SP fans??  I've got some great news (for me, that is)! 

As further proof that I did far better in the marital sweepstakes than I strictly deserve, my long-suffering better half just got word that he's been invited to be a presenter at a conference this October!  And I get to go!

But wait, it gets better!  Because he's in the for-profit world, his conferences are held in attractive places in season.  Unlike education or social services, both of which I have experienced, the for-profit world doesn't have to watch every farthing and count every sou.  When you suck off the public teat, you have to take what you can get, which means you get to attend conferences in all kinds of visitor-friendly locales -- off season, that is.  Such as the time my friend Joanne was fortunate enough to attend a conference in Arizona - in June.  Or the annual NEA convention in July - in New Orleans.  There was one particularly memorable week earlier in our marriage when Warren got to attend a conference in FRANCE and I got to attend a training at the HOWARD JOHNSON'S off Exit 8.  That would represent the apogee of going from the sublime to the ridiculous, if it weren't for the experience we had last week, wherein Warren flew off to present at a conference in Toulouse, France, and I spent the week attending an educational leadership training in...

...wait for it...

the basement of the old high school here in town.  Nothing says "we value what you do" like convening in a room with exposed piping and stained ceiling tiles!

And just when you think it can't possibly get any better, my friends, it does!  Because this conference, about which I am already excited even though it is four months away, takes place at...

... can you stand the suspense? ...

THE WORLD GOLF HALL OF FAME!!!

I am breathless with anticipation!

At this point, you may be scratching your head in bewilderment.  "Wait," I hear you thinking to yourself, "I cannot recall Caroline, either in word or deed, expressing the slightest interest in golf, either as a participant or as a spectator.  In fact, given her proclivity for sitting on her ass and writing blog posts, I cannot imagine her engaging in an activity that requires devoting several hours of her already scant free time to standing around in loud attire, clapping softly or waiting her turn to swing a narrow club at a ball that is so small as to be almost statistically impossible to hit."

And you, my friends, would be one thousand percent correct.  I think golf is the second-most boring pursuit in the world, the first being contract bridge.  Before you pooh-pooh my opinion as being one uninformed by any experience with golf, let me correct that assumption.  I have played golf, multiple times, sort of.  I spent several months in the springs of 1981 and 1982 participating in an elective golf unit in Phys Ed, wherein my friend Elaine and I hit our bucket of balls as rapidly as we could so we could stand around talking whilst the kid in my class who eventually went on to be a golf pro spent ages practicing his shots and conferring with the PE teacher at great length about "hooks" and "slices" and whatnot.

My second experience with a good walk spoiled came when I worked for the Fraser, Colorado, recreation department for the summer.  As one of the perks of the job, we got a free pass to the town golf course.  Lest the idea of a public course bring to mind dusty fairways and weed-choked water hazards, the town links happened to be the one and only Pole Creek Golf Course, which, if you follow such things, is supposed to be a big fat hairy deal.  Considering I went to the mountains of Colorado to experience the favorable male-to-female ratio (favorable for me, that is), I could not have cared less about the relative merits of the golf course if I tried.  The free season's pass to the course was as nothing to me, a fact that I enjoyed telling people who actually paid actual money to go do something as stupid as whacking a little ball around God's green acres so I could watch them writhe in agony as they calculated how much money they were spending on something I was rejecting for free.

As it turns out, it is a good thing I find golf kinda stupid, because apparently I have absolutely no aptitude for it.  During my orientation at Fraser Rec, we had a teambuilding night wherein we all adjourned to Pole Creek for a round of golf. It is truly a spectacular place, ringed by snow-capped fourteeners and nestled in the high alpine meadows.  (For now, we'll gloss over how environmentally irresponsible it is to maintain a golf course in what is, after all, the high desert.  Because it's a great use of water, which is an increasingly scarce commodity and one that is essential for human existence, to maintain a golf course - almost as good an idea as bottling water for sale to people who have perfectly fine tap water to drink.  But that is a rant for another day.) 

We split up into guys-versus-girls and headed out to the links for an evening of eagles, or bogeys, or whatever it is you're supposed to be shooting for. 

Well.

Let's just say that golf is not something one "picks up" on the fly, as it were.  My extensive Phys Ed experience notwithstanding, I really, really sucked at golf.  Oh, sure, the ball-washing thingie was fun to use, but the actual golfing?  Not so much.  After the first seven at-bats (or whatever it is you call it) failed to move the ball further than two feet away from the whatsit - tee? - we instituted the one-hit, one-throw rule, wherein one picked up the ball wherever it had landed upon being hit with the club, and then threw it as far as one could in an attempt to shorten the interminable time it was taking to play one friggin' hole.  So incompetent were we as a group that the real golfers on the course didn't even bother trying to play through.  "I'll go play the back nine," huffed one red-faced middle-aged specimen in plaid pants, driving off in a snit and a puff of dust.  After playing two holes in two hours, we (thankfully) gave it up in favor of rum and cokes in the clubhouse.  Now I understand the appeal of that pursuit.  My score for two holes was, if memory serves, a 28 - fourteen hits, fourteen throws.  Beat that, Michelle Wie!

So, given my complete lack of a) interest and b) aptitude for the gentleman's pursuit, why, then, am I so excited to go to the home of the World Golf Hall of Fame?  It's simple, people!  Golfers, as a group, tend to be among the better-heeled element of society.  They also are not known for their love of roughing it (rough!  golf pun!).  Where you find golfers, you are going to find nice amenities, like restaurants!  spas!  pools with poolside bar service!  Shoot, I'll dress in plaids AND stripes if it means I can get me some poolside daquiris, yo.  Mmmmm... daquiris.  Don't worry, I'll think of y'all when I'm sipping a cool one after my massage.  'Cause I'm generous like that!

How Well Do You Know Man's Other Best Friend?? Free Online Quiz!

Did you guys know today is "Bring Your Dog To Work Day"?  For reals!  I'd like to draw our attention to a common, yet unspoken, bias in our country in favor of dogs.  Notice that while cats now outnumber dogs as the most common household pet in America, no one's talking about a "Bring Your Cat To Work Day". Have you ever wondered, "Am I ready for life in a country where cats are more prevalent than dogs?  Do I really understand what's going on inside the little furry crania of our new best friends?"  Well, SP fans, if you've ever pondered these mysteries, ponder no more!  Take this quiz to find out:

Do You Understand Cats?

1.  Finish this sentence:  The shortest distance between two points is:

• a line.
• found by coming in at the back door and walking out at the front door.

2.  You walk into the room and see a brand new, beautiful, ornate, hand-knotted wool rug on the floor.  Your immediate reaction is to:

• Start mentally rearranging furniture and picking out paint chips to redo the rest of the room so it looks just as good as that rug!
• Barf copiously.

3.  A webcam surreptitiously installed at your house would find you at 9:57, 11:25, and 2:36 doing the following respectively:

• Reading the paper, doing the dishes, fetching the mail.
• Practicing yoga, checking your email, washing countertops.
• Sleeping, sleeping, and sleeping.

4.  You walk into the home office and spy a pile of papers on the desk.  Your reaction is to think:

• Oh, dangit.  More work to do.
• Papers!!  Oh boy!!  I can tell just by looking at them, they're gonna need a whole lotta holding down!  I'd better get started right away!!!

5.  In deference to certain digestive issues of yours, a family member goes out of the way to procure and prepare for you a special healthful (and not inexpensive) dinner.  Your response is to:

• Thank said family member profusely and eat heartily, making "mm" and "delicious" interjections as seems fitting.
• Thank said family member courteously yet not sincerely, eating the dinner out of a sense of obligation.
• Treat the proffered dinner with suspicion and disdain, circling warily and making only halfhearted attempts to taste it before stomping off outside to chew gleefully on something that's been dead beyond recognition since last Tuesday.

6. You walk into a room filled with people you don't know.  Your first response is to:

• Stride purposefully up to someone, introduce yourself and shake hands. You have to be a go-getter in these situations.
• Make eye contact with someone who looks friendly and wave, but don't approach.  You need to give people some space, after all.
• Walk halfway across the room, sit down suddenly and lick your butt.  What?  It's dirty!

7.  You see a mouse running out of the corner of your eye. Your response is to:

• Scream.
• Set a mouse trap.
• Call animal control to rent a havahart trap.
• Ignore it in favor of going outside, killing something not currently invading the house, eating it and throwing it up later, preferably when all other residents of the house are asleep.

8.  Someone with whom you live leaves a freshly-ironed garment on the bed.  Your immediate response is to:

• be nice and hang it up. After all, one good turn deserves another.
• accidentally-on-purpose bunch it into a wad guaranteed to result in a million new wrinkles. People need to learn to pick up after themselves around here!
• sleep on it, having shed copious amounts of contrasting-colored fur on it first.

9.  You come inside from your daily exertions ravenously hungry.  Your immediate response is to:

• grab a snack from the fridge while you wait for dinner.
• drink a glass of water to stave off hunger pangs.
• eat a healthful snack of a piece of fruit and a handful of nuts.
• eat so much food so quickly you then barf copiously.

10.  What is your reaction upon receiving a gift?

• I skip the niceties and unwrap it right away, shredding paper in my haste.
• I carefully read the card, thank the giver, and then sedately open the gift, carefully slitting the tape so I can reuse the paper later.
• I play with the paper wrapping, the ribbon, the box, the plastic container - anything except the actual gift itself.

ANSWERS:
If you need me to tell you which answers are from a cat's perspective, you clearly have never owned (or come into contact with) a cat. You are un-American and should be called on the carpet by Karl Rove for your subversive tendencies. 

I will leave you with these thoughts about cats:

"Cats are possessed of a shy, retiring nature, cajoling, haughty, and capricious, difficult to fathom. They reveal themselves only to certain favored individuals, and are repelled by the faintest suggestion of insult or even by the most trifling deception." ~Pierre Loti

"The sun rose slowly, like a fiery furball coughed up uneasily onto a sky-blue carpet by a giant unseen cat." - Michael McGarel

"Dogs believe they are human. Cats believe they are God." ~Unknown

Long Days with Short People

A Recipe for Happy Children:

Ingredients:
Two young siblings (usually fighting and getting in each other's hair)
One rainy day
One large can of shaving foam
One bathtub

Add crabby siblings to tub with several gallons clean water.
Squirt sides of bathtub, tub toys, and available limbs of children with copious amounts of shaving foam.
Allow to marinate for at least one half-hour while you go about your business (folding laundry, drinking wine, maintaining your sanity) with one ear listening for trouble.
Increase shaving foam as needed to hold childrens' interest.
Rinse, blot dry with towel, clothe in pjs.  Serve immediately.

Color Yourself Green ...

... with envy, biatchez!  'Cuz I'm-a spending the first day of my summer vacay here!

Update to follow later!

UPDATED TO ADD

Caroline's Spa Visit By-The-Numbers!!!

Number of cars in the client parking lot worth more than mine: All of them.

Number of digits tipped with nails painted O.P.I.'s "I'm Not Just a Waitress":  Ten

  Is that not simply too fab for words??  And I have a bottle at home already for those emergency touch-ups!  Yeah, I know this isn't cutting edge.  Somehow I've managed to live this long without ever being fashionable; I think I can keep going awhile longer.

Number of times I worried if my feet were too gross to touch:  Four or five.  I lost track. After reading Madge's horror story about the snaggle-toed boss lady, I've lived in fear that I've been judged (and found wanting) on the basis of my neglected feet.  But it's a benign neglect, really, I trim my nails and all, it's just that I used to take tap lessons, and they really wreaked havoc on my toes, and I have these calluses because my feet are so flat and ... I'll shut up now.

Number of smudges I managed to accrue on just-painted nails: One on the right thumb, one on the left big toe, and the expert manicurist waved her magic brush and smoothed everything over.  Just a sign of things to come, I fear.

Number of compliments fielded about skin:  Two.  From two different spa ladies.  So they must mean it!

Number of "blockages" "extracted" from my face (or, what I used to call "picking my blackheads" when I was a teenager):  I don't know.  I was too busy thinking, "Ow!  OW OW OW!  Ow!  OOOWWWW!" to count.   

Number of embarrassing confessions:  Also two.  The first on a skin care form. Q: "What skin care products do you use regularly?"  A:  "Whatever's on the counter in the bathroom when I go to bed."  The second on a question from the hair stylist. Q:  "So what products are you using on your hair?" A (mumbled): "Pantene."  Her response (in disapproving tone):  "I can tell." I also had to fess up to not wearing sunscreen regularly, which always feels akin to telling the dentist the truth about my (nonexistent) flossing routine.  You're not the boss of me!

Number of high-brow, low-brow, and middle-brow trashy mags read: Well, let's see: Vanity Fair, Ok! (I loves me those British tabloids!), O! Magazine, aaaaand Ladies' Home Journal, but just the "Can This Marriage Be Saved?" article (In case you're wondering, the answer is "yes."  The answer is always "yes".). So that's four.

Number of minutes adorably cute hairstylist took to blow my kinky-curly hair straight:  About thirty. The girl's a pro!  Even at my best I really couldn't cut it down to less than forty-five if I wanted to do it well.

Number of expensive personal care products pushed on me:  None.  Not that they weren't suggested; they were just suggested in passing, and they let it drop when it soon became glaringly apparent I wasn't buyin'.

Number of shades of eyeshadow adorably cute makeup artist used to give me "soft, subtle, and natural-looking" eyes:  Eight.  Leaping Jesus, I think Michelangelo painted the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel with fewer shades than she did my eyes!  No wonder I can't replicate the look at home.

I think he used the "bold nighttime colors" palette.

Number of dollars spent on spa indulgence: Way, waaaay too many.  I'm embarrassed to admit just how many, so I'm not going to.  But isn't it worth it if I come out of it looking like this:

  I mean, look at me, people!  That is actual light bouncing off my actually glossy and well-conditioned hair!  And my skin - is it not dewy and glow-y and imbued with an aura of youthful health?  Do I not look relaxed and rejuvenated and ready to be a better mother, wife, and person??  Hot damn!

Number of times I had to pull newly-straight strands of hair off my newly-glossed lips on the drive home:  Too many.  I forgot how annoying that is.  Sorority girls, how do you stand that on a daily basis?  Maybe Jen Lancaster will know.

Number of times I nearly rear-ended the person in front of me because I was a) blinded by my hair flying in my eyes; b) checking out my skin in the rearview mirror; and/or c) blissed out by all that "me time": Um, no more than three.  Okay, four, tops, but that one time the guy stopped without any warning for no apparent reason!

Condition of house when I left this morning:  Messy, with a side of crumb-bestrewn.

Condition of house when I came back:  Sadly the same.  I guess being a more beautiful me doesn't automatically extend to my domestic arrangements unless I fire up the Hoover my own self. *sigh*

Letters From A Broad: I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar Edition

Dear MegaBookMart,

As an institution purportedly focused on customer service, you have some customer serving to do.  Given the fact that you cater to a (supposedly) literate and (therefore equally supposedly) enlightened segment of the population (albeit one inordinately fond of Dilbert mugs and gardening calendars), I assumed that your restroom facilities would reflect that enlightened status.  So imagine my surprise when I sent the redoubtable Warren off to the mens' room with a small daughter sporting a bulgy behind and a dry diaper, only to see him reappear mere moments later, bearing said small child, bulgy bottom, and dry diaper, all status quo ante.  "Here," he said, not bothering to contain his glee as he thrust said small child motherward, "you have to change her.  They don't have a changing station in the men's room."

Uuuuhhhhh ... WHAT?!?!?!

Hello, MegaBookMart?  Have you ever actually looked at your customer base?  A bunch of them are men!  Of the male persuasion!  And a bunch of those come replete with children!  So why, pray tell, are your diaper changing facilities limited to the ladies' room??  How antediluvian an attitude is THAT?? Did you need those extra two square feet for something else - the latte flavorings counter, mayhap, or the extensive displays of designer-fabric-covered journals and mini-book-lights?  Furthermore, have you looked, I mean really looked at the men who frequent your store? To put it kindly, they do not tend to suffer from excess testosterone syndrome.  They trend toward the sensitive-crunchy-vegetarian- wearing-sandals-and-socks type, leavened with a generous helping of stylistically-challenged-techie types and - important to note here - harried-looking-father-of-small-child-in-a-front-pack types!  So what happens when one of the latter, diaper-wearing child in tow, tries to, oh, say, give the child's mother a much-needed break by getting the little vermin angel out of the house and out of her hair for an hour or two, and the angel in question has a poopy butt?  Is he supposed to ask the multi-pierced, barely articulate barista to change his pride and joy?  Or do you expect him to stand outside the ladies' room and ask random female passers-by to change his child's befouled bottom?  And what of the children of single dads?  Or those who have two daddies?  What are those kids expected to do - sit in their wet, stinky diapers until their poor paternal family figures can find an establishment whose policies are firmly rooted in this century, never mind millennium?

Okay, okay, I realize you will shuffle your feet and mumble something about "perverts" and "lawsuits" when I bring this up, so I'll offer this compromise:  How about adding a single-stall, unisex bathroom with a changing station in it?  That would cover multiple bases at once, and stave off the threat of the protest I have in mind:  A mass poop-in!  Yes, imagine your aisles of mugs, bookbags, stuffed animals, picture frames, and incidentally books, all filled with daddies changing babies who have been fed a steady diet of cauliflower puree, raisins, and apple juice and chanting, "Hey, hey!  Ho, ho!  My baby's gonna go!" 

There's still time to mend your ways, my friends.

Signed,

Some Pig

My darling Warren, light of my life, partner of my heart, man of my dreams,

We are in MegaBookMart on a desperate hunt for a last minute birthday gift for one of India's little friends, the selection and purchasing of which has to transpire immediately if not sooner.  Upon clapping eyes on the childrens' section of the store,  the fruit of our combined loins start to head down divergent paths with but the same goal:  Total and utter decimation of every book, game, and toy display in sight.  "So which one do you want," you ask merrily, as our children bolt in opposite directions, "the small destructive one, or the large destructive one?"  To which I answer, "How about you watch both of them, and I'll pick out the gifts so we can get out of here faster?"

And then you say, in a sort-of-joking-but-serious-underneath tone of voice, "But that's hard."

Uhhh ... YEAH.  Here's a news flash for ya:  Doing anything with two little kids in tow is hard!  Try grocery shopping with these two, especially when it's creeping up on the arsenic hour and they're hungry and tired and cranky.  Try going to the garden store and asking about the strange bugs on the lilies while your two kids do their utmost to manhandle every delicate decorative gewgaw and tip over every tropical plant in sight. Try talking coherently to the freaking computer repairman on the phone while the baby clings to you screaming hysterically and the older one lies on the couch moaning, "Nooobody's taaaaalking to meeeeee ... nooobody's taaaaalking to meeeee ..." ad infinitum.  This, my friend, is why I sometimes beg and plead with you to take just one of the little buggers darlings with you once in awhile when you have to run to the hardware store.  And why I stomp off in a huff when I ask you if I can leave the kids home now and then to make a run to the grocery store, and you give me the old "I'm in the middle of __________ (insert manly and vaguely dangerous household maintenance chore here) and it's hard to stop now," speech, and why I double stomp off and roll my eyes when you add, just a touch impatiently at the end, "can't you just take them with you?"  For while you are an incredible, involved, in-touch father and husband who supports and cares for his family beyond my wildest dreams, this is the one thing you just don't "get".

Love,
Your Wife

Dear Mainstream Media,

Do you mind if I call you MSM, Mainstream Media?  After all, given how much time I've spent following your every doings, I feel as if I know you.  And I have to say, I'm a little disappointed in you, MSM.  For the past year, watching you has been like watching one of those skits where a nice but not particularly bright straight man observes the comedian choking or drowning or otherwise facing imminent bodily harm and takes an exceptionally long time to figure it out. First, one major Presidential candidate is referred to as a "bitch" in front of another major Presidential candidate, and little note is paid.  Then you seemed to miss seeing the Hillary nutcracker almost completely.  Then you take little notice of John McCain calling his wife - his wife, mind you, she of the millions of dollars and personal airplane, without which Johnny would be back in the Senate as yet another Republican also-ran - a See You Next Tuesday!  In public!  I won't even write what he called her, that's how vile I consider that statement to be.  And then, after a couple "soul searching" articles to the effect of, "Gee, some people think we're vaguely misogynist?  Huh.  I wonder why that is," you let slide the by-now-infamous crackbrained commentary calling Michelle Obama a "baby mama" on Fox News! 

HELLO?  Not only was that comment derogatory for being sexist, it was also derogatory for being racist!  It was a twofer, and if it hadn't been pounced upon by the left-wing blogosphere, it would have gone practically unnoticed!  Why aren't you jumping on this with both feet, MSM?  Why am I not hearing stories about that commentator being censured, or demoted, or fired, along with editorial broadsides from the major news outlets warning against future displays of such troglodyte impulses by the Fourth Estate?  Why isn't every pundit and personality of note seething with public fury about this?  Why, David Brooks' face should be as purple as the lovely tie he's wearing here over this!  The furore in the MSM should be just barely dying down now, instead of dying down almost as soon as it came to life!  The head poohbahs at Fox should be manning the barricades right now, just having come from wiping the egg off their collective face and taking their collective foot out of their collective mouth.  Every other professional in the MSM should be inching their seats away from the Fox reporters and giving them the "I don't see you" body language message when they run into each other in public until Fox gets the hint that that shit don't fly in a civilized society.

How bad is this?  Well, replace all the derogatory comments made over the past year that were based on being female with derogatory comments based on race.  Replace all the female-based negative descriptive terms (like "cackle") with race-based negative descriptive terms ("shuck and jive").  Now imagine what the public reaction would have been to the use of those terms.  See what I mean?  DUH.  Now all of you in the MSM call your mamas right now and apologize.

Don't make me come over there,
Some Pig

In Which I Declare My Complete and Unconditional Surrender

When India was a wee slip of a baby, Warren and I had a donnybrook over the fact that she ate the organic cheese tortellini before she ate the steamed organic zucchini.  He wanted to ban any and all processed foods from her diet posthaste. (I reference it somewhere in the dim past but can't be arsed to search it out.) 

On Friday, when I walked in the door bearing the tell-tale white cardboard box with the iconic red-and-green print of Italian-American takeout food, Celeste's little face lit up as she yelled out, "PEE-TA!"

Before I had kids (when I knew what I was doing), I swore that they would eat real food, dammit!  There would be no dinners consisting only of the pale foods (mac'n'cheese, corn, fries).  No nights spent cooking two meals, one for adults and one for kids.  No drowning any and all questionable foods (i.e. vegetables) in ketchup and/or ranch dressing so the kids would eat them.  No catering to unformed and unsophisticated tastes would transpire in our kitchen, by golly!  If dinner was kale and spicy sausage soup, then you bet your bippy my kids would be eating kale and spicy sausage soup!  And they certainly would NOT be allowed twenty slices of bread in lieu of a good, healthy, homemade dinner!!

I look back fondly on those days.  It was nice living in my own little world.

Stop the Madness!

Dear Fellow Parents,

Come with me on a trip down memory lane.  I am four years old and it is my birthday.  My mom has the neighbor kids across the street over to mark the occasion.  The festivities consist of everyone singing the birthday song, consuming their weight in cake and ice cream, and leaving. I don't even remember if I got presents. 

Fast forward one year.  I'm five, and the celebration has become correspondingly more sophisticated:  The clientele includes more friends than just the kids across the street; we play "Mother, May I," and "Pin the Tail on the Donkey" and then have cake and ice cream. I open presents (mostly small plastic things from the local five and dime) while everyone (again) eats their weight in sugary treats and vamooses posthaste.

I tell you this not to reinforce the notion that I am ancient (Although when I was young, the Old Testament was just "the Testament" and Methuselah was often chided for his callow youth.  "He's so young, the tribal elders would say, clucking their tongues over his latest juvenile transgression - chariot joyriding, oxen tipping and the like - while the womenfolk tried to placate them.  "Remember when you were like that?  He'll mature over the next couple score of years.").  I realize you might get the impression that I'm superannuated, what with the reference to the "five and dime" and all (Okay, keeds, the five and dime was like an exceptionally small, locally-owned Wal-Mart, where'd you go with your allowance and ... oh never mind.).  No, I tell you this so you'll have some context to understand why I was so surprised to pick up my daughter at day care the other day and find a yo-yo in her cubby with a note purporting to be from the birthday girl, explaining that this little trinket was given in celebration of her birthday.  Oh, and, by the way, my daughter doesn't even know this little girl, and as far as I can figure, she's not even in the same class.

Um, exsqueeze me?  I must not have gotten the memo that says we now give random strangers gifts on our childrens' birthdays.  I can only guess that Mom must have bought a gross of the things from Oriental Trading and had no other way to get rid of them, because otherwise, why would you give favors to kids who don't even know your kid?  And whatever possesses someone to give a room full of three-and four-year-olds each a yoyo, fercrissake?  My daughter can't even yo!  That sure made for an enjoyable evening, listening to her screams of frustration as the yoyo spiraled out of her control and rolled around on the floor.  Maybe I can use future birthdays as an excuse to give everyone a Ninja throwing star or something of that ilk. 

So can we all agree to a period of detente in the birthday party arms race?  I know I'm guilty of birthday overachievement (India's third birthday extravaganza immediately comes to mind), but at least I've never fallen prey to the urge to up the ante on everyone else. I suggest that we all go back to the standards of the seventies, a time before themed birthday parties, mandatory favors for the attendees, destination events, and parents hanging around during the festivities.  We can lead the kiddos through a rousing game of "Button, Button, Who's Got the Button," let them loose on the swing, dole out too-large slices of cake (made from a mix! with no organic ingredients!) and then send them on home.  Gifts will be given from the attendees to the birthday child, and parents of those guests who protest will be remind the protesters of their own birthday that a) has just passed, or b) is coming up.  Thank-you notes will not purport to be from the (pre-literate) birthday celebrant, typed in a child-themed font, or written on stationery engraved with a four-year-old's name.  Best of all, the entire time required to plan, prepare for, hold, clean up after, and thank people in attendance at the event will be kept to a maximum of six hours (at least until said children are of an age where they want slumber parties, at which point you are on your own, folks).

So who's with me on this?

A Universal Truth

I dare any of you - double DOG dare you - not to feel your spirits soar when you're riding along in your car, listening to the radio, and suddenly you hear the first few chords of "Rock 'n' Roll High School."  I don't care how long I spend on this mortal coil, anything by Joey, Deedee and co. makes me smile.  If I'm ninety years old and wheelchair bound, I bet "I Wanna Be Sedated" will get me popping wheelies and snapping towels at my fellow oldsters.

Tell me - what other songs immediately put you in your happy place?

I Call Do-Overs

I typed up a new blog post and somehow it disappeared into cyberspace despite the fact that I know I hit "save". (Um, Typepad people?  I'm not so enamored of the new! improved! Typepad.  Just so's you know.  It moves slower than a retiree contemplating knickknacks at the Christmas Tree Shops.)

I left India's dance bag at home and had to make an unexpected trip home between school and the plant store and day care and dance lessons.

I bought some super-eco-friendly (and super-duper-expensive) bug killer for my poor benighted lilies and the top wasn't screwed on tightly ... so two-thirds of it spilled out ... alllllll over the floor of my car.  And my super-eco-friendly reusable lunch sack.  Aaaaand my bookbag - the very same one that had been used as a vomit receptacle earlier this year.  (Long story.  Don't ask.)  (At least the super-eco-friendly bug killer smells like cinnamon.  But can I eat lunch from a lunch sack soaked in bug killer, no matter how super-eco-friendly?)

It's hotter inside my house than outside.  Just turning on the oven to make fish sticks is going to make it spike even higher, but it's all we have that's (purportedly) edible in the house. 

Can we just hit reset and start over?

EDITED TO ADD:

It's 8:32 pm and both my children are awake.  Yep, wiiiiiide awake.  And the temperature is now falling faster outside than it is inside, so my house is now seven degrees warmer than the external air.  And Warren's at a late meeting and then dinner with a colleague.  I'm not sure "reset" will do it - maybe "demolish"?