Yesterday dawned and brought with it a fever and listlessness for the girlchild, so I got her brother packed off to school and her set up on the couch and tried to salvage the day. I worked, she dozed. Somewhere towards lunch I stopped to stroke her hair and prepare myself to murmur "Poor little bunny" as needed. Whether this had been brewing for a while (I think it had) or she was just miserable enough with whatever yuck she was fighting (she was) or a combination of the two (almost certainly), before I knew it I was listening to a tale of woe, a catalog of complaints that ranged from...
Licorice is pretty much exactly what we imagined, when people told us about how great it would be to adopt a rescue dog. "They're just so grateful," people said. "They bond to you in a way other dogs don't. They just love you SO MUCH." [Come to think of it, people tried to tell me that about kids before I had them. And not ONCE in any of those conversations did anyone mention a hormonal tween screaming and incoherent with rage, stomping up the stairs, all because I said "Please go change into a pair of pants that don't look like you just pulled them out from the laundry pile under your...
Fall has finally come to Georgia, and that means the temperatures have finally dipped below 70. Otto and I spent a day wrestling the pool cover in place, which made it all the more fun the next time the children accused us of planning wild partying for when they go off with their dad; usually we tell them that we swim naked while eating candy. This time, of course, Monkey said, "NO YOU CAN'T! The cover's on the pool!" He looked so triumphant that I almost felt bad for telling him that, naturally, we grease up with frosting, slip under the cover, and use our empty pixie stick wrappers to suck...
I've had labels on the brain, this week. Go figure. The irony is that we all seem to believe that labels = organization, and when I married Otto we gained a fancy electronic labelmaker that the kids seem to think is some wondrous hybrid of the Wii and the circus. There is never a happier day than when Otto lets them take out the labelmaker and label something. So I've been noticing our labels on things. Bread flour. Wrenches. 2007 Taxes. They're everywhere. They're usually very illustrative. They add order to our world. They're supposed to make things make sense. I'm cute when I get all...
I know it often appears that I am completely obsessed with the dog, but that's only because I am completely obsessed with the dog. And by that, of course, I mean that the dog is a convenient focal point in a world filled with plenty of less pleasant things to do than get your face licked. [True story: One of my clients sent me some paperwork about a month ago, and I put it on my desk, and then I put other stuff on my desk on top of it, and pretty soon I totally forgot that it was there. A couple of days ago I got a call from their accounting department, and as soon as the caller announced...
My alarm clock went off at 5:45 this morning for the first time since last Thursday, and verily, I didst think Very Bad Words Indeed. In a discussion with some friends (okay, FINE; it was a thread on Facebook, because we all know I never actually talk to people face-to-face anymore), I realized just how LONG of a day the kids have, for no discernible reason. I mean, okay; Monkey is gone by 7:15 but is generally home before 3:00, which just seems like a long day for a little guy. It's not beyond the norm, I suppose, although the schools are always bitching about how they don't have time to...
