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Lost dogs and four-pawed messages

by Mir on January 19, 2012 in Aspi(e)rations, Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Oh look! Something furry!!

I may have mentioned before that sometimes there’s a dog at Hippie School; the director was bringing her almost every day, for a while. This dog and Monkey immediately became the best of friends, because Monkey loves animals and Star is a saintly paragon of patience when it comes to children flinging themselves all over her.

It was reported to me on more than one occasion that when Monkey was having a difficult time, either he would spontaneously go bury his face in Star or she would go to him and sit on his feet. (It must be noted here that Licorice is also very patient with Monkey, but at 12 pounds, it’s not as though she can actually anchor him the way a large dog can, and that’s aside from the fact that if he’s truly freaking out, she gets scared.) Just one more benefit of Hippie School, right?

One day last week Monkey came home absolutely despondent. “Star ran away,” he told me, eyes brimming with tears. “She was probably just chasing something and got lost. She didn’t come back.” (more…)

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Comments { 64 }

Kids today, man

by Mir on January 17, 2012 in It's not a regret, it's an "experience", Offspring: ecstasy and agony

In the midst of angst and hand-wringing, I sometimes find it helpful to remember that my kids have survived worse. Even more comforting, in a bizarro sort of way, is remembering that I survived MUCH worse, and what’s more, back then—in the Stone Age, you know—no one even though it was much of a big deal.

Clearly I just need to toughen these kids up. Put ‘em to work, maybe, or force them to walk to school in the snow. Except we don’t have any snow, and nowadays that would probably be considered child abuse. Heh.

Today I’m over at Off Our Chests, reflecting on some differences between my childhood and theirs, and how it either means everything is going to work out okay, or maybe just that they should get off my lawn. Either way. Come on over and weigh in.

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Comments { 1 }

Another monkey wrench (Monkey wrench?)

by Mir on January 16, 2012 in Aspi(e)rations, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

First: A health update! Thank you so much to everyone who had such kind words and thoughts for my sweet mother-in-law; once again, she fooled us all. She’s out of the ICU and doing much better. This is good news because we love her, but excellent news because I don’t think Otto could’ve taken it if things had gone differently. (Although I didn’t mention this in the last post, while waiting on updates on my mother-in-law, we unfortunately lost two other magnificent folks—their deaths weren’t unexpected, but were still way too soon. “They” say bad things come in threes, and for once I was VERY VERY GLAD that they are dirty stinking liars.)

So. What could POSSIBLY be better than sickness and death? I MEAN REALLY? We started off the year with a real bang in the stressors department, and by any measure of stress and “life challenges” one would probably think this was enough, no? I certainly would’ve checked the “FULL UP ON ANGST, THANKS” box, had I been polled on the matter.

[Sidebar: I WAS NOT POLLED. Still bitter, frankly.]

Well, death and sickness was not to be the entire story for this, my VERY FAVORITE January. Nope! I picked Monkey and Mario up from Hippie School one day and Teresa asked me to call her “when I had a sec” after I got home. (more…)

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Comments { 63 }

Happy banana!

by Mir on January 5, 2012 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Because I am in desperate need of something cheerful this evening, I give you the intersection of my son’s delight and my husband’s penchant for documenting everything:

(It was a Most Excellent birthday, bananas and all.)

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Comments { 8 }

A dozen kinds of wonderful

by Mir on January 4, 2012 in Aspi(e)rations, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

My current earworm:

Because, yes, today my Monkey is (sing it with me!) 1 2 3 4 5, 6 7 8 9 10 11 12! (Remember when they only ever counted up to 12 on Sesame Street? It was like numbers higher than that just didn’t matter, or even exist.) (more…)

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Comments { 67 }

The continuing saga of pestilence

by Mir on December 30, 2011 in Health is overrated, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Thank you all for the well-wishes for my mother-in-law. She had surgery and they were able to insert a rod into the bone to repair it, and it is around about this point in the story when Monkey puts his hands over his ears and says “YOU CAN STOP TALKING ABOUT THIS NOW” because it weirds him out to think about operations and people being fitted with rods. Because we are excellent parents, we assured him that Grammy is just fine, and we will all love her just as much now that she’s a cyborg as we did before.

In the meantime, my poor brother-in-law Nearly Nickless wasn’t feeling so hot, and the LAST time we were at their house, you know, he got a stomach bug which I ended up getting (which landed me in the ER), so I immediately started spritzing myself with hand sanitizer and giving him an extremely wide berth.

It turned out that he had strep throat. Because of course he did! As the excellent house guests we are, we clucked sympathetically, asked him if we could get him anything, and then promptly packed up all of our stuff and left. (more…)

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Comments { 17 }

Guess who is my favorite right now?

by Mir on December 17, 2011 in Offspring: ecstasy and agony, Oh look! Something furry!!

Without compromising the privacy of the underlings in my household, I can tell you that the three little ones ’round here have VERY different reactions to impending travel.

It’s funny, really, to watch them all exhibit such different behavior. An interesting anthropological study, you might say. Because there’s that whole nature/nurture thing, plus two of the three share DNA, yet they could not be more striking in the various reactions they have.

And I, of course, just have to deal with it all. With a smile. When I can manage it. So, yes: The kids head off for vacation with their dad, today, and here is what my morning wrought: (more…)

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Comments { 30 }

It’s… educational!

by Mir on December 15, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, I'm dating the television, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

You guys. I… I can’t even. Because words fail.

A couple of weeks ago someone posted this on Facebook, and I watched it with a mix of horror and delight. Because LOOK:

And I made Otto watch it, too. And Otto said, “No. YOU ARE NOT WATCHING THAT WHEN IT COMES ON TV.” And I argued, and he kept saying no, and then last night I was channel-surfing and it was on and he was upstairs, so I watched it. With Chickadee. (more…)

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Comments { 56 }

You’ll shoot your eye out, kid (or not)

by Mir on December 12, 2011 in Aspi(e)rations, Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. Now, on the one hand: Monkey went to a birthday party this weekend. In fact, Monkey has received no less than four birthday party invitations since beginning his time at Hippie School, and if you’re a longtime reader I probably don’t have to spell this out (but I will, anyway, because saying it out loud makes me marvel all over again), but four birthday party invitations is… oh… roughly FOUR MORE than he received in the previous couple of years combined.

Hippie School is terribly tolerant and inclusive, and I love and cherish that so much, even if it means we get an invitation to a 5-year-old’s party and Monkey’s response is “Why would I want to go to THAT?” (Answer: Because you’re all one big happy family now, DAMMIT.) Of course, this opens up a whole new avenue for us, because now instead of him always being left out we actually have to PICK and CHOOSE from the MANY party opportunities. Which is weird. And wonderful.

Parties can be a little overwhelming for him, so we’ve turned down several invitations. But this weekend was Luigi’s party, so off we went. (more…)

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Comments { 30 }

Moral of the story

by Mir on December 7, 2011 in Haven't been hit by lightning yet!, Health is overrated, Offspring: ecstasy and agony

You get one day to stay home from school when you tell me you don’t feel well, even if you don’t necessarily have a fever. I’m willing to suspend disbelief for one day.

When you refuse to go to school on the second day, I will inform you that in the absence of fever or vomiting a second day home must indicate pernicious, invisible illness which needs to be diagnosed RIGHT AWAY, and therefore I will be scheduling a visit to the doctor.

What I may have forgotten to mention until shortly before said appointment is that there are now two options: Either the doctor agrees that you are quite sickly, or the doctor says you look absolutely fine… and then you will be getting your flu shot. I mean, as long as we’re there, and have paid our co-pay, and I’ve lost half my work day. Because I wouldn’t want you to be any SICKER, you know. (INSERT MEANINGFUL EYEBROWS.)

In short, Day 1 is a Mental Health Day, but Day 2 is Mama Don’t Play That Day.

(P.S. I suspect tomorrow will be Miraculous Recovery Day.)

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Comments { 22 }
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