“Mama, do you think I had a good day today?”
“I dunno, Buddy, did you?”
“What do you think?”
“Well, I sure hope you did. I think you probably did. Should we look?”
“Yes. You should look.”
“Okay, go grab your book for me.”
I stood in the kitchen this afternoon, transfixed by an empty jar of peanut butter. It was maybe 1:30 and I’d finally gotten around to making myself some lunch. So I pulled out the crunchy peanut butter and some cherry preserves (mmmm… sugary fruit) and made myself a sandwich by carefully scraping the last of the peanut butter from the jar.
Then I stood there, jar in hand, while a battle raged within me. On the one hand: I am a proponent of recycling. On the other hand: Peanut butter is sticky, and the jar really needed to be WASHED rather than just rinsed, and it was already well past my normal lunchtime and I was hungry and tired. On the third (invisible! mutant!) hand: Have I really become the sort of person who shirks recycling because, waaahhhh, it’s too HARD?
Good news! Through a mixture of planning, assisting, and bribery, I was able to get the kids to clean up the damn playroom already. I know you were all really concerned about it. I discovered that with three of us and about an hour, and a liberal application of “Well, I suppose you COULD keep that, but I wonder if Santa will think you have room for anything else…,” almost anything is possible. If by “almost anything” you mean “enough cleaning happens that the carpet is revealed and can be vacuumed.”
At one point during a tense “you’re really too old for this toy now” negotiation, Monkey became the epitome of generosity and zen. “That’s okay, Mama, you should give that to some little kids who don’t have much. It’s better to give than to receive, anyway.” I was about to gush all over him about what a wonderful sweet boy he is, when he continued on: “Besides, it’s November. Next month is Christmas and Santa comes and then the next month is my birthday, so I think I’m gonna be getting lots and lots of stuff!” (more…)
So last night, I got home (the trip back was as uneventful as the trip there, save for the lady next to me on the plane sucking down drinks in a manner that made it necessary for her to exclaim loudly to her companion across the aisle about every fascinating item in her Stampin’ Up! catalog) and ran around my house turning the heat back up and went through my mail and then sat down to tell you every fascinating little iota about my mini-vacation.
And discovered that my internet connection wasn’t working.
It was touch-and-go there for a few minutes, while I tried to remember what one does with no internet. Do I panic? Cry? Read a book? Rub two sticks together? It had been so long, I just wasn’t certain of the protocol. Finally I broke out of my paralysis and called the cable company. (more…)
Hello! I ate my weight in fat and sugar yesterday. Today I shall repent by… going to another Festival of Eating. Ack. People, I do not recommend hiring Otto as your cruise director. I go where he tells me to, and where he takes me always seems to involve a lot of calories. I think he’s trying to fatten me up. I shall have to start poking a chicken bone out of my cage when he asks to see how fat my fingers have gotten.
Anyway, mostly I want to report that flying on Thanksgiving Day is absolutely the way to go. Never in my life have I had a less eventful, more pleasant day of travel. All of my trips henceforth shall start on Thanksgiving. That won’t be restrictive in the least, I’m sure. Oh, well. A small price to pay for having skipped out on serving dinner to the homeless yesterday. Oops. (more…)
But the last-minute deals on flights aren’t bad, either.
Thanks for traveling with Orbitz. This e-mail confirms the ticket number(s) issued for the “Atlanta 11/23/06″ trip.
This year, thankful doesn’t even begin to cover it. But right now I have to go pack.
Happy Thanksgiving, and happy Love Thursday.
Today Chickadee snarled and grumped her way through the morning, moving at top glacial speed and crying at any and all of the following suggestions: That she get out of bed, that she get dressed, that she move a little faster, that she select a food for breakfast, that she join us for breakfast, that she remember to take her backpack upon leaving the house.
It was a really splendid way to start out the day. My favorite was when I called up the stairs to see if she was on her way down and she screamed back “I’m brushing my hair! Do you WANT me to look like it has birds’ nests in it??”
I sort of wanted to see that, but I didn’t think she’d appreciate me saying so. (more…)
First of all, Otto and I had already picked the category winners from yesterday’s post well before midnight. Because we’re wild like that. And because Otto had to get to bed because he needs to be up early. (I also have to be up early, but I have given up sleeping for Advent.) (What, you think that’s weird? Sometimes I give up guilt for Lent. But then I feel bad about it.)
Next, I believe one of the signs of the Apocalypse has come to pass, and it’s my civic duty to alert you to our collective impending doom. (more…)
Today I am obsessing over Matters Largely Unbloggable™, which leaves me precious little to offer. Not that that’s ever stopped me before. Ahem.
In lieu of anything even smacking of cohesion, I give you the following unrelated bits and also a chance to win a fabulous mystery prize:
Thing the first: We didn’t go to the movies this weekend. The children elected not to finish cleaning the playroom on Saturday, and by the time we got through church and grocery shopping and eating lunch today and I had the AUDACITY to suggest they take another crack at it, their anguished wailing made it clear that tap-dancing penguins are not, it turns out, a very good motivator. Perhaps if they were both tapping AND farting. Who knows. (more…)
I’m taking a break from yelling at my children to sit down and breathe deeply and count to ten. Or maybe ten million.
Last night I came up with a shockingly simple premise, and I even laid it out for them before bed so that there would be no surprises today: If the playroom gets picked up in the morning so that a person can actually, I don’t know, WALK IN THERE without tripping on or otherwise stomping and breaking things, we will go see Happy Feet at the theater this afternoon. I may have even offered to buy popcorn.
I will give you three guesses—though the first two don’t count—as to how the cleaning is going. (more…)
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