Some Pig

All I Wanna Do Is Have Some Fun

It's been a sucky week, what with the aforementioned testing and the subsequent schedule changes, and then just when that finally came to an end we had the Worst-Planned Field Trip Ever bring everything to a screeching halt again which resulted in mass panic and discombobulation on the part of the kids (not to mention the person running the aforementioned WPFTE, and should I mention that this person runs this exact same field trip four times a year???  And has done so for many, many years??  As in, DECADES?  As in, even if you are as slow and deliberate as a three-toed sloth, I would think that you would have had time to get it right by now!  But I digress.). So after six days in a row of screwed-up-ness, it's no surprise that the kids were nuttier than squirrel crap today, especially with the weekend just hours away, which was of course EXACTLY not the day to start a new activity they've never done before, but I can't afford to lose any more time since all the other 8th grade Social Studies teachers are already in the middle of the Revolutionary War and I just started the French and Indian War today, so damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.  Which turned out to be not such a bad thing except for my last period class of the day, which happens to be the one most heavily loaded with students who are not overly gifted in the brains or social maturity departments BUT who FAR exceed the local, state, and national standards for Being Talkative Pains in the Bum.  So after pointing out to one of these cherubs that there is NO WAY IN HELL the French and Indian War could POSSIBLY have led directly to World War II since they were separated by, oh, ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-FIVE YEARS, and may I point out that this was not the DUMBEST question I answered all day, well, a girl needs a little decompression time.  And you MIGHT then think to yourself, "Hey!  At least it's the weekend!" and you would be right in thinking that the weekend is the perfect opportunity to pause and regroup, refreshed by a hiatus from the cares and woes of the workaday world spent with one's nearest and dearest, BUT...

You knew there would be a BUT, didn't you?

... BUT, the in-laws are coming.  Which means that instead of spending the weekend catching up on all the craziness of the previous week and getting my ducks in a row for the craziness to come, I am going to spend the next 48 hours wishing the whole damned weekend was over and done already.  And then, since I know the ILs love us and come visit because they want to be part of our girls' lives, I will feel guilty and ashamed of myself for being such a heartless, ungracious, bratty little beast.  Then I will resent the fact that I feel that way, which will be followed by resenting the fact that, for reasons that are way too long and complicated to go into here, they are very, very difficult to have around and to keep entertained.  And since Warren and I are both stressed out and resentful, naturally the girls pick up on our tension, which, coupled with the excitement of having Grandparents! Around! All!! Weekend!!!, means that at some point during the weekend, one of the girls will have the kind of Difficult Moment that doesn't show her in the best possible light, which invariably ends with my father-in-law trying to step in and play the role of Stern but Doting Grandparent, by which I mean scolding her while trying to make it sound like he's not scolding her.  Which pisses me off.  And makes me resentful.  And starts the cycle all over again.

If I take to my bed with a bottle of gin, do you think anyone would notice?

I Didn't Realize I Had Competition

"You're my favoritest mommy," Celeste says contentedly as she pads up the stairs in front of me.  "I'm glad to hear it," I reply, acting on autopilot because I am lugging the cat carrier, the cat, my purse, several lunch boxes, and about ten other bulky objects that require being lugged at the end of the day before I can turn my attention to the seven or eight other crises that await.

A few minutes later, I am struck by the thought that, hey!  Whaddya mean, 'favoritest'?  Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I'm at the top of the heap, but where are all these auxiliary mothers when I could use a hand?  Like when someone pees in her pants and needs cleaning up (not naming names, but I'm looking at you, Celeste).  Or when I have to assemble dinner, which is what I should be doing right now?  If one or two of the B-list moms would put their Devil Dogs down and get off their reality-TV-watching duffs for a few minutes once in awhile, maybe things would run a leetle more smoothly chez Pig.  Really, it seems like being awarded the title of "favoritest mommy" just means I get to continue doing all the work I'm already doing, instead of getting a two-week all-expenses-paid vacation to someplace exotic, like Cancun.  Or Manchester.  Either the British version or the local one, doesn't matter.  Sheesh.  So much for extrinsic motivation.

Welcome to the Family!

Because I have nothing better to do than complicate my life, we went and did this:

This is Moxie.  He's nine weeks old.  And quite a handful for something so small.

India is in love.

Celeste is in love, too, but she wants to hug him and squeeze him and call him George a la the Abominable Snowman with Daffy Duck, so she has to be closely monitored with him at all times.

Speaking of Celeste, she is adapting well to preschool:

This happened during the arsenic hour on the first week of school.  Herself was so tired, she fell asleep in mid-tantrum when I wouldn't let her juggle knives or stick her tongue in the blender or something else totally fun that everyone ELSE in the whole world gets to do, MOTHER. 

The beginning of the school year has coincided with some of the most stellar autumn weather I've ever been alive to witness.  We've been taking advantage of having several hours of daylight in the evening to do some outdoor chores:

We've been stacking wood and, believe it or not, the kids have been helping!  In fact, they've been ARGUING about who's going to push the wheelbarrow and who's turn is next and how long that turn is going to be and how much wood goes in the wheelbarrow.  This is a 180-degree turnaround from my childhood, when Auntie Sarah and I argued so that we could get OUT of helping.  It would be even more remarkable if their helping was actually, um, helpful, but I will take what I can get.

Then we went to a fairy house exhibition nearby.  For years I'd been harboring the fear that everyone else's preschooler was a budding Mies van der Rohe or I.M. Pei while my kid was throwing a handful of grass stems and pine needles in a sad little lump and calling it good.  I was relieved to see that the other "houses" created by India's age cohort looked pretty much the same as the ones India constructs; i.e., like a pile of weeds and crap randomly stacked at the base of nearby trees.  However, my kids were woefully underdressed for a fairy house tour.  Warren pointed to India dancing in a crowd of bewinged, besequined and betulle'd fairy maidens clad in her black t-shirt with the appliqued flower and a denim skirt.  "Caroline," he whispered fretfully, "she looks like a goth next to all the fairy princesses."  Indeed, she looked like Kelly Osbourne (pre-DWTS, that is) at the debutante ball, but whatever.  I think I'd rather have a goth/sk8ter girl than one of the gaggle of 16-year-old girls dressed up like anime princesses, replete with fluffy crinolines and tiaras.  But you know how I am about anime.

Well, that's about all from here for the moment.  One last thing:  I saw these great cookies at Stonewall Kitchen that were frosted to look like giant pieces of candy corn, and I want to replicate them. Does anyone know of a good butter-type cookie dough that's stiff enough to roll out thickly and cut into triangles?  I promise to post pictures of the results!

It Ain't No Party Here, I'll Tell You UPDATED

India and I are in the middle of a knock-down, drag-out fight, replete with commands to "Go to your room, young lady, and don't come out again until you can behave!"  Followed by, "Fine! I want to go to my room anyway!  And don't come in!"  Punctuated by slamming doors and thumping feet.

Want to know what triggered this donnybrook?  A birthday party.  Not only that, but this birthday party hasn't even happened yet.

Here's the backstory:  Celeste got her first invitation to a birthday party sans older sister, and India is ragingly jealous.  My rather avaricious elder daughter is having a hard time accepting the concept that her sister is going to have fun she isn't going to have, and is going to get something she isn't getting, and it's killing her.  So India issued an edict that "Ceecee HAS to share her goody bag with me!"  Well, no, she doesn't.  I will spare you the play-by-play, but the argument on my side boiled down to, we don't make you share your goody bag toys with Celeste, so she doesn't need to share them with you.  The argument on India's side boiled down to, that's not fair, "not fair" being interpreted in this situation as, "any situation I don't like".

There are two facets to this issue, one being that India is just experiencing the first inklings of the fact that her sister is, in fact, a completely separate human being who is not always going to trail around in Big Sister's shadow.  I have pointed out, in a total and complete waste of breath, that India has had a three-year head start on birthday parties, friendships, goodie bag procurement, parental attention, etc. etc., and it is only natural that Celeste is going to enjoy some of the same as she gets older.  The other facet is the completely and totally ridiculous symbol of suburban overconsumption and overachievement, that being the birthday party goody bag.

I have made no secret of the fact that I hate goody bags and the stuff that comes in them.  When I was attending kid parties, back when the earth was cooling and party invitations were painted on cave walls, there was no such thing as a goody bag.  You were just psyched to get cake and ice cream in your young years, along with pizza, soda, chips and candy in the tween phase.  Sometimes the host gave out little prizes for winning party games like Pin the Tail on the Donkey, or my current favorite game, Let's See Who Can Leave Mommy Alone the Longest, but that was it.  Somewhere in the three-plus decades between my last kid party and my childrens' first, the idea that the party itself was treat enough for the attendees fell out of favor (no one thought to inform me of that fact, because I certainly wouldn't have approved).  Living as we now do in the land of hypercompetitive parenting, the whole goody bag scenario has taken on the nature of the nuclear arms race of the 80's.  Here's an illustration:  At India's fifth birthday, I decided that I'd have the kids decorate paper lunch bags, thus turning the goody bag into an activity as well as a favor.  Then the kids could use their goody bags to carry the pinata candy home.  (I also gave out packets of flower seeds that I got at a discount store which refused to sprout, so I guess I did contribute to the birthday-party waste stream, but I tried to keep it to a minimum.)  After the pinata was beaten into submission, one of India's little pals wandered up to me and asked, "What's going in the goody bags?  Where are the favors?"

"You already got it," I pointed out.  "It's for your candy."

Her little face fell.  "That's it?"  she said, in tones that conveyed equal amounts of disbelief, amazement, and contempt.  Apparently a party that includes a bounce house, sprinkler play, arts and crafts, bubble blowing, a pinata, a hotdog lunch and cake and ice cream is a washout unless it includes a bag filled to overflowing with crappy plastic doodads manufactured in unsafe working conditions by people whose daily pay is outstripped by the cost of the goody bag's contents.  Furthermore, the whole philosophy behind giving out the goody bags irks me.  Somewhere along the line, someone decided that being a middle-class kid from a nice family meant that your kid should never experience any unpleasantness or discomfort.  Does your kid cry because the birthday boy is getting all kinds of swag and she's not?  Instead of telling her that that's the way life is sometimes, you'll have a birthday one day and no one else will get presents, you get to point out, look! there's a goody bag!  And, since you're trying to keep up with the Joneses next door, YOUR goody bags have to be bigger and better than the goody bags at THEIR kid's party were.

I swear, the next birthday party in our house is going to have a Tibetan Buddhist theme.  We're going to renounce worldly goods and drink yak-butter tea before volunteering in a leper colony.  The face masks and antibacterial hand gel can count as the party favors.

EDITED TO ADD:  Here are some comments my Facebook friends made that are worth adding:

Sue:  I wholeheartedly agree!! (surprise surprise) Goody bags rank right up there with giving the siblings presents on birthdays so they don't feel left out.

Joanne:  I think goody-bags should be given out at meetings -- and the longer the meeting, the better the swag. (And no, H1N1 prevention brochures do NOT count as swag.)

Me: See? Goody bags should be reserved for making unpleasant occasions more bearable. A birthday party is supposed to be fun in and of itself. I shouldn't have to bribe kids to want to be there with a buncha junk.

Letter From A Broad, Celebrity Endorsement Edition

Dear Ed Hardy/Christian Audigier/whoever,

For starters, could you please decide what name these garments are meant to evoke, because I am totally confused.  One would think that this Ed Hardy fellow is the person responsible for this, um, fashion statement, but then right under the name "Ed Hardy" is the very prominent subheading BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER.  What is that supposed to mean?  Is Ed Hardy Christian Audigier's alter ego?   Is he an evil twin?  Have Ed Hardy and Christian Audigier ever been seen in the same place at the same time?  Why the hell is this clothing line named after the apparently fictitious Ed Hardy if you're just going to splatter BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER all over it?  Why not just call it CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER and spare yourself the hassle?  Also, isn't it a little outre to display the designer's name so prominently under the label name?  After all, when Karl Lagerfeld designs a Chanel suit (is he still designing Chanel?  I seem to be five or six years behind on my Vogue reading), he doesn't put BY KARL LAGERFELD under the famous double-C logo. Furthermore,  could I please clue you in on the poor choice you made for "celebreality" spokesperson?  I know there's a recession, but geez - Jon Gosselin?  Really?  What, Michael Vick was too pricey?  There wasn't a Backstreet Boy or two willing to give you a cut-rate endorsement?  Finally, could you please share with me whatever kind of mind control you're currently exercising over the general populace to make them wear your ugly-ass clothing?  I would like to share it with the crazypants folks who are convinced that public-option health care is akin to throwing out the Constitution in favor of gulags and Five-Year Plans.  I'm not saying you have to be clinically insane to love Ed's-slash-Christian's unique aesthetic (i.e., biker tattoos meet seventies van art tinged with just a splash of eighties fluorescence), but I'm sure it helps.

Sincerely,

Puzzled

Dear Jon Gosselin,

Wow, what douchebag you turned out to be!

(As you can see, I don't believe in pulling my punches.)

While I'm not a J&K+8 fan, I had seen enough of your ex to have a whole lotta sympathy for you, and from the sounds of it, a lot of other people felt the same way.  And you've managed to burn through those stores of goodwill in about three-point-two tabloid stories, dude.  When you were the whipped husband shambling along in the wake of the SS Kate, I wondered what you'd be like if you weren't being chastised, ordered around, condescended to, or belittled continuously.

Obviously the answer is, "a douchebag".

Look, I understand you're making up for your lost youth.  You were surrounded six-deep in diapers and TV cameras at an age when I was hanging out with my friends, running up credit card debt, going out on worknights, and dating highly unsuitable people (Or more accurately, pining after highly unsuitable people and wondering why they didn't want to date me.  It's best all around that I got married later in life.).  But the fact remains that you are THIRTY-two, and not TWENTY-two, so a good deal of the sh!t you can get away with, or at least excuse away on the basis of callow youth, you can't do when you pass the three-zero Rubicon.  I mean, just look at the sight of you:

Aside from the fact that the picture on the upper left makes you look like you're rocking the petal-pink lipstick (not your best color, BTW), you've got the cute-suburban-dad thing going on.  The picture on the right, on the other hand, makes you look like a superannuated frat boy after spring break.  Dude, if your face gets any puffier, you're going to have to punch it down like bread dough.  And we need to have a long, serious talk about your Ed Hardy BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER addiction.  There are several things I never want to see on or near ANYONE'S hiney, and embroidered lion's heads definitely make the list.  Seriously, the only place we should EVER see those jeans is on a bonfire.  Or on the Glamour magazine "Don't" page, and you should have a black bar over your face.  One or the other.

We also need to talk about your taste in women, a sense of taste which seems to be firmly lodged right behind those lion's heads.  I know now that you're on the road to being unmarried you are free to pursue your lovin' any way you want it, but do you have to pick barely-legals who look like they're carrying an alphabet soup bowl full of STDs, even if they can't spell STD?  Holy penicillin, Batman, if any of those walking Petri dishes of skeeze you've been parading around came anywhere near MY kids, I'd be asking the pediatrician for an aerosol antibiotic.  No, scratch that.  If any of those skankbuckets came near my kids, I'd be lawyering up and throwing the book at you.  And I'd just love to see the judge's reaction when you come strolling into the courtroom in your $275 sweatshirts and your bottle-blonde hoochie mamas.  I'd be getting sole custody faster than you can say "Ed Hardy BY CHRISTIAN AUDIGIER" five times fast.

Now go put on some nice Dockers and pay some attention to your kids.

SP

P.S. Beware the specter of a rapid fall from fashion's graces wearing that trendy sh!t too.  Remember Ashton Kutcher and the trucker cap phenomenon?  I rest my case.

Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Polaroid

Five years ago last May, I held a squalling bundle of newborn baby in my arms and gawped at the sheer incomprehensibility of it all.  Our photos (yes, we were still kickin' it old skool those days, with photos and negatives and all that nonsense) show what looks like a well-swaddled loaf of bread with two little raisin eyes peering out from under a blue-and-pink knit cap.  Intellectually, I knew that this miniature human would someday walk and talk and go to school, but her actually doing any of those things seemed about as likely as saying that she would spontaneously talk in Sanskrit or flap her arms and fly to the moon. 

Fast-forward five years plus a few months, and I'm preparing India for her first day of kindergarten.  KINDERGARTEN!  Because the first day of school for her was also the first day of school for me, I had to deputize her father to record the momentous event.  I set the digital camera out prominently on the counter and left, issuing a cheery reminder for him to take pictures (for which read: growled a thinly-veiled threat of mayhem should he fail to do so), Mommy was going to want to see them when she got home!

As soon as Warren walked in the door that night, I snatched the case from his grasp and eagerly switched the camera to "display".  And this is what I saw:

Just fyi - both girls are in the picture because India attends a private kindergarten at their preschool.  Our town has only half day kindergarten.  Paying for a half-day of care and arranging transportation to and from school would be basically the same amount of hassle and expense as just paying for the private kindergarten.  Yeah, I'm not exactly thrilled about that, yanno? 

I clicked back and forth several times, but the only pictures I could find were these two.  "Where are the rest of them?"  I asked.

"The rest of what?" my better half innocently responded.

The rest of what?  THE REST OF WHAT??  How about the rest of the photos I was expecting??  Where was the picture of India's cubby with her name on it waiting for her?  Where were the pictures of India finding her name tag and putting her things away?  Where was the photo of India showing the before-school-care lady her backpack, lovingly assembled by her doting mother the night before?  Where were the damn PICTURES???  Holy shamoly, my friend Denise took two pictures of her daughter just standing in the door to her ROOM on the first day of school, never mind the whole rest of the morning, and we have two for a grand TOTAL???

Warren showed me his photographic efforts with the same pride I imagine Margaret Bourke-White felt looking at a career retrospective.  "See!" he said, "I got one picture of them outside, and one picture of them inside!"

Now I need to put this in some perspective for you.  At last count, this computer housed approximately three million, six hundred and seventy-two thousand pictures of CARS and CAR PARTS.  Warren seems to have taken up a side hobby of buying used cars and selling them for less than he paid for them (Long story.  Don't ask.).  As part of the sales process, he has to take pictures of every square inch of the damn thing, close up, from a distance, sideways and in soft focus.  And then he posts said pictures with a description of the car on Craigslist, which results in perfect strangers emailing MY account, because Muggins is too busy to set up his own account and he doesn't want to use his work address.  These perfect strangers always ask for additional information about the vehicle, including MORE PICTURES (usually all in lowercase letters and with frequent misspellings to boot). A typical missive runs something like this:  "is car still avalable if so pls take fotos of left front calipurs and break pades also rear quater panel and entire underbody.  plus is upholstry faded or is that a shadow?"  Since the 7,892 pictures of the rear quarter panel that are already posted CLEARLY don't do it justice, Warren then has to take another three score and ten pictures of the EXACT SAME THING and email them off to parts unknown, whereupon the loser at the other end of the cable line decides he can't be bothered to take it unless Warren will knock another $2k off the price.  Yeah.  No.

Sooooooo, while we have TWO pictures of our eldest daughter taking her first steps on the journey of lifelong learning, we have AN INFINITE NUMBER of pictures of this:

 

And this:

 

Oh, and let's not forget this:

 

I like the expression on this one:

This one usually gets me a little choked up:

 

(Oh wait... that looks exactly like the first car picture I posted.  Huh. Whaddya know.)

All I want to know is, how am I going to explain THIS twenty years from now in the therapist's office, hmmmm?

Life Is But A Dream

Today I woke up (as I have woken up throughout most of the summer) feeling like I was being watched.  I opened my eyes to find two bright peepers mere inches from my morning breath.  "Hi," I whispered.  "Hi, Mommy," Celeste whispered back, patting my face.  Then India, who was sleeping on my arm, rolled over and sat up.  As she usually does of a morning, she launched immediately into a detailed discussion of her dreams the night before, followed by a dissertation about how you have to read the tags on your stuffed animals because sometimes they come with a name already and sometimes you have to make up a name.  (Seriously, the kid's mouth is binary.  She has two conversational settings:  Off and on.  There's no "good morning," no gradual ramping up to full power, no gentle introduction to the topic at hand.  She's either asleep, or she's talking in compound-complex sentences with transitions and conjunctions.) Then Celeste turned to Warren and started tickling him with her little hands, chanting, "Tickle, tickle!  Tickle tickle!"  Meanwhile, the cat watched suspiciously from her perch at the bottom of the bed, waiting for the inevitable swarm of attention that is her cue to scram.  All of this transpired at 7:02 a.m. - on a Sunday.

"Warren," I said, "this is NOT the way Sunday mornings used to be."

"Well, it is NOW!" India crowed.

Most mornings that I don't have to get up early start this way.  India and Celeste have long since figured out that if they want to come in our bed during the night, if they crawl in on my side I won't even notice them anymore.  So I usually wake up stuck between a small body lying on my hair on one side and a larger body pinning my arm to the mattress on the other.  While I wouldn't mind having my half of the bed to myself and not starting the day with pins and needles in my arm, I can't bring myself to get too concerned about our semi-sorta-co-sleeping arrangements.  When the girls wake up in our bed, they're always happy to see us and in a good mood.  I know that in just a few short hours, the girls and I will have had a zillion little arguments about - well, whatever.  Brushing hair.  Picking up.  Eating some dinner instead of drinking five cups of milk and claiming you're full.  My head's going to feel like it will explode into a million pieces if I have to wipe up spills or change wet undies or repeat myself one more freakin' time.  We'll all be caught up in the endless, endless process of turning these little instinct- and impulse-driven creatures into civilized, empathetic, and polite human beings.  In a couple of years they'll be too big to cuddle, and in a couple more years we'll have the drama and trauma of adolescence on our hands (which should be a doozy, folks - after all, I have a five-going-on-fifteen-year-old as it is; once the hormones kick in, we're all in trouble).  Some day these girls won't want to crawl in next to us in the dark and quiet anymore.  Even though I'm looking forward to seeing how they turn out, I'm glad they're who they are right now.

Letter From A Broad, Helpful Hints Edition

Dear Homeowner,

After driving by your house twice recently, I simply must compliment you for making the best of a tricky situation.  It is difficult to keep up appearances when one uses one's front lawn as a general storage facility.  However, I don't think that sticking a small table of rather fatigued looking knick-knacks outside as well and putting up a sign that says "yard sale" by the side of the road allows you to forgo the process of actually cleaning up your yard.  I'm just sayin'.

Sincerely,
Someone Who Was Not Put Up to This By Your Neighbors, Although They Have Every Right

Dear John Paul Jones,

"Caroline," Warren said to me as he watched you trying to launch the S.S. Minnow the other day, "I don't think he consulted the owner's manual."

I gave him the stink-eye, for my mate is not one to prate about having paranormal abilities. Suddenly he's claiming omniscience?  "Why is that, dear?" I replied.

"Because generally you need wind to go sailing," he responded.  And indeed, he was right.  Perhaps you should take that under advisement before you try to go sailing on a hazy, humid, and more to the point, perfectly breezeless August afternoon.  Otherwise you might wind up, oh, I don't know - drifting aimlessly around the boat launch in front of seventy-five people or so?  Getting the keel hung up on the buoy lines marking off the swim area, perhaps?  Whoever said, "don't give up the ship," I'm pretty sure was NOT talking to you.

Fair winds and following seas!

SP

Dear Canada,

Having spent a week vacationing in your friendly climes, I must admit I have found much to admire about our northerly neighbor.  The province of Quebec strikes a lovely balance between New World convenience and European culture... which is a fancy way of saying I can get behind a place where everyone speaks with a cool accent but they use English when I run out of my high school French.  Having availed myself of your hospitality several times, along with a few chocolate croissants and a crepe or two, I have often wondered why Canadians don't suffer from the same plague of obesity that we U.S. residents are so prone to.  I'm not saying you can't find a hefty critter or two north of the forty-eighth parallel, but it is proportionately much rarer.

Well, now I know why.

After spending the night in Vermont, we bundled the girls into the car at half-past early o'clock and started off for points north.  We figured we'd snack 'em up on cereal bars, which would last long enough to get us north of the border, then stop for a proper breakfast.  We went through Checkpoint Charlie without a hitch (except for the fact that we didn't know both our passports had expired, which is a sad commentary on how little exotic adventure yours truly enjoys these days).  Then we proceeded to look for a suitable breakfast place. 

And we looked.

And we looked.

And we looked.

WTF, Canada?  What do you have against people who want to eat food?  We drove for hours - literally HOURS - on a major highway, and could not find ANYPLACE to eat that was actually open and actively serving food.  We even detoured through a fairly sizeable town, and the only thing we could find was a Tim Horton's on the wrong side of the highway.  Out of sheer desperation we wound up stopping at a convenience store for granola bars and juice, which at least stopped the ceaseless chorus of "When are we going to eat, Mommy?  Mommy, I'm hungry," with accompanying percussion (i.e., kicking my seat back).  But still, one granola bar and some juice does not a breakfast make when you've got pancakes and eggs on the brain. 

So now I know why Canadians suffer less from obesity.  It's a big country, and I'm sure you have to truck around a fair bit to get from point A to point B - and there's nothing to eat along the way!  Sheesh, you can't go five minutes in any direction on a highway around here without finding half a dozen places to eat!  That may be a little excessive, granted, but could you maybe find a happy medium before we come up for our next visit?

Thanks,

Le Cochon

PS Notice how I refrained from saying, "eh?" anywhere in that letter?  I'm so proud of me!

Dear XM Satellite Radio,

For once in my life I have only good to say about something, as regards the trip mentioned above.  We took my husband's car, the one with the XM satellite radio and the kids' music channel.  Based on a strong desire to keep the smaller passengers happy and (relatively) easy to handle, we listened to kids' music for about 80% of the ride to and from our vacation.  Let me tell you, it was nothing short of a revelation!  I got to listen to songs I haven't heard twenty zillion times before, I didn't have to buy seventeen different CDs, and I didn't ONCE feel like stabbing anyone! AND... there was NO Wiggles.  Not One. Single. Song.  (And before my readership accuses me of hating on the Wiggles, rest assured, I loves me some antipodean vocalizing, but really - haven't we all heard "Get Ready to Wiggle" a million times or more already?)  I even found myself looking forward to certain songs, and hoping they'd be played again!  Truly the best $12.95 we spent this month.

Sincerely,

A Satisfied Consumer

It's Worth The Trip*

Today at the playground, Celeste invented a role-playing game.  Under her direction, I would "drive" up to the imaginary take-out window where she would ask me, "Do you want coffee and Munchkins, Mommy?"  Then she would hand me my order and say, "There you go!" after which I would "drive" away, before starting the whole routine over again.

This brings several thoughts to mind:
1) What does this say about my parenting?
2) What does this say about Ceecee's future career aspirations?

I'm going to gloss over the other role-playing game, where we "drove" to the grocery store to buy dinner, which consisted of macaroni and cheese and hotdogs, and nothing else.

* Extra credit to those of you who get the reference

Lies I've Told My Children

Sorry, honey, there's no more pie left. 

I think your father's suggestion of going for a hike on a hot summer day is a great idea.

Santa's workshop is open all year long and if you don't stop it right this instant I'm going to call him and tell him to put you on the naughty list!

Of course you want to play with your sister!  Mommy and Auntie Sarah always liked to play together.

I said please and thank you without being told when I was a little girl.

Mommy was listening, honey, go on with your story.

That tooth sure looks wiggly to me!

I can't imagine how that Rainbow Fairy story ends, why don't you tell me?

Mommy loooooooves trying new vegetables, mm, mm!

They stopped making that show.

Our TV doesn't get the Disney channel except when the babysitter's here.

We always pick up our things and put them back where they belong, ladies, even Mommy.

I'm not going to say this again.

I just have this one thing to do on the computer and then I'll be happy to play with you.

I don't know where your special magic rocks are, India.  Maybe the fairies came last night and put them back outside?

Of course I like [name of miscreant here], we just don't have time to go over and play with her right now, that's all.