We try very hard to do a few special things with each kid when we have just one of them, so last night we took Monkey out for dinner to his favorite restaurant. What he likes best about it is that the nachos are not so much tortilla chips covered in cheese as they are a plate of cheese with a tortilla garnish. What Otto and I like best about it is that the margaritas are very cheap. So. Somehow we got sucked into one of those circuitous conversations where Literal Boy's brain has a small short-circuit; I had said something about pants that accentuated my hips (no, I don't know why were...
I appreciate all of the commiseration on yesterday's post. Misery truly does love company, and slogging through the tween/teen trenches is made a bit easier by knowing that many of you are dealing with similar issues. (Though I must say that my dad's comment on my behavior at that age was a nice touch. Ahem.) Thusly bolstered, I was ready to get back to Doing For Her Highness; specifically, I was ready to play another round of Medical Telephone on her behalf. When we last left off in the rash saga, the New Specialist was leaning heavily towards a nickel allergy, even though Chickadee has...
I meant to do another (final) installment of Otto Week, over the weekend, but I turned out to be too busy with my favorite boy-type people to get around to it. See, on Saturday Monkey came back, and on Sunday, Otto returned. Of course, Chickadee left on Saturday, so I still don't have the entire family here, but that's okay for right now. Digression, except not really, because this is probably going to be kind of long: Are all 12-year-old girls sociopaths, or just mine? I'm asking for real. Because she's positively charming and I cannot get enough of her and everything is super awesome right...
You may have noticed a lack of Monkey stories this week. That's because he's away with his dad, and we are trying to muddle along in the space he leaves behind when he's gone. Specifically, that space denotes a marked lack of: dimples, jokes that make no sense whatsoever, and hugs that squish the air right out of me. (I miss two out of three of those things a LOT.) While my kids are always on my mind, here or not, Monkey's been on my mind even moreso than usual. I share bits and piece of the immediate, here, but thanks to the kindness and encouragement of fellow mom-in-the-spectrum-trenches...
I took Chickadee grocery shopping yesterday, and she begged---begged!---for a watermelon. I enjoy watching her beg; I didn't tell her I'd been planning to buy one, anyway. We came home and unloaded everything, and the next time I walked into the kitchen, I saw this: Apparently Mr. Watermelon Head is ready to give his life in pursuit of liberty and the American Way. Or so I'm told. Have a safe and happy 4th of July, everyone!
Yesterday I took Monkey to the post office with me to mail some packages. We frequent four different post offices, depending on where the errands of the day happen to take us, but yesterday we hit the one we go to most often, and the clerk recognized us. She chatted up Monkey ("How old are you now? What grade are you in?") while I piled items on the counter. She began going through the stack and stopped to look at the return address on one of the packages. "Now, what's Want Not?" she asked, peering at my handwriting with a furrowed brow. "It's a bargain shopping website I run," I responded,...
It's nearly July, in the third summer of my daughter's Mystery Rash Saga, and we are still stumped. When we last left off, the doctors suspected sun allergy, but then in a follow-up phone call amended that to "maybe it's just a sensitivity to chemical sunscreens." We were instructed to ditch our old sunblock and buy only the kind that uses a physical barrier rather than a chemical one, and told that within a month we should see an improvement if one was going to happen. We dutifully replaced all of our cheap sunblock and crossed our fingers. As soon as Chickadee finished the last round of...
1) Whoever is "It" is not allowed to wear goggles. 2) Game may be delayed for prolonged argument between children as to whether wearing goggles on your FOREHEAD qualifies as "wearing goggles." 3) Everyone has to play or someone is going to whine. LOUDLY. 4) When playing with the "no getting out of the pool" rule, you may still get out of the pool as long as you immediately execute a spectacular cannonball to establish your whereabouts. 5) Rule number 4 is actually imaginary. Expect copious complaining from "It" after executed. 6) The dog is not required to respond "Polo!" at any time. 7)...
The kids came back tonight, and they were taller and bigger and I couldn't stop marveling at how just two weeks made them different. Monkey looked like he was gaining weight on the cruise, actually, and two more weeks of voracious eating have settled on his frame in a way that renders him less the spindly waif I've known for so many years, and more a sturdy boychild who could tip into adolescence at any moment. We made him hop on the Wii Fit to weigh him; it claims he gained 8 pounds in the last month. Chickadee is now mere inches away from being my height. She will be taller than me by the...
