Pssssst!
Blogging for Books is back and I can assure you that it tastes great, is less filling, and does not cause unsightly anal leakage.
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Home sweet office
The time has come, the walrus said, to realize that your desk is littered with legos and Polly Pockets and coloring book pages and trading cards….
Kidding. I’ve never met a talking walrus. Although it is true that my children tend to deposit all manner of items either on or near my computer, probably because that’s where they most often find me. I have asked them, time and time again, to please NOT leave their stuff all over my desk. I have begged, and I have pleaded. I have reminded them that the desk is for the computer, and working. I have pointed out that their accumulated toy miscellanea is leaving me precious little room for my diet coke cans, coffee mugs, water cups, and plates.
I just cannot understand why they don’t listen. Silly little kettles!
Anyway. Normally I just work around all that, but now, you see, I’ve started working on Becoming Official.
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I see, said the blind man
Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.
–Carl Jung
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A time to gather stones together
The television is currently limited to children’s channels and stuff recorded on the fake TiVo. I’ve topped out on my ability to absorb or handle any more news about the devastation in Katrina’s wake.
I did a lot of things today. None of them seem very important at the moment. Except one.
I walked outside late tonight and realized that Fall is on its way. The night air wasn’t just cooler than usual, it smelled different. Crisper. The leaves are starting to blow off the trees. The skin on my arms broke out in goosebumps while the little hairs all reached up to touch the breeze. I turned towards the big maple out front, trying to make out the individual leaves (wondering if they were changing color), and glanced up and realized that the sky was clear and teeming with stars. I stood transfixed, cold forgotten–everything forgotten–feeling very much a tiny but integral piece of the world for a moment.
Take some time to look at the stars this weekend. And don’t forget that The American Red Cross is accepting donations towards hurricane disaster relief and every little bit counts.
Let’s play the brainwashing game!
I’ve decided that the hallmark of good parenting is the ability to convince your progeny of just about anything, plausible or no. You need to wear the right clothing so that you don’t get sick! There are no monsters in your closet! Some harmless incorporeal freak wants to sneak into your room and give you money in return for your discarded enamel! Etc.
It’s a handy skill to have, this deadpan presentation of anything they “should” believe. Luckily for me, my kids are still pretty gullible. Well, Monkey moreso than Chickadee (he is younger, after all), but on the whole, I’m sure my parents will be very pleased to know that the money they spent on my very useful degree in Theater Arts was WELL SPENT.
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The glass half-full… of peanut butter
Once upon a time there was an adorable little Monkey toddler who was fat and happy and gurgly and loved creamed spinach. Yes! CREAMED SPINACH. From Boston Market. But I digress. The point is that he happily ate just about anything you fed to him. And anything he found on the floor. Or in the dog’s dish. (I suspect there will be a lot of digressions tonight.)
ANYWAY.
Then one day I accidentally fed him some poison, and after the excitement that went with THAT, a picky eater was born.
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And I’m. . . uhhhh. . . uhhhh. . . .
We’re at T-minus TWO DAYS until Chickadee goes back to school (Monkey doesn’t start til next week) and already I can see that life is going to be very different this year. In ways that I really hadn’t anticipated.
For starters, Chickadee is going to a new school this year. New school, new layout, new rules, new (ooooh! ahhhhh!) swipe cards to use in the cafeteria! She can make her own selections at lunchtime and have whatever she picks automatically deducted from her pre-funded ID-linked account! Why does our school district think this is a good idea? In her school last year, I had to submit a form every month in triplicate, signed in blood, and notarized, authorizing her to have chocolate milk. Now? She can waltz into the lunch room and get chips or cookies with a flick of her card unless I can figure out how to convince her that the All-Seeing Mama Eyeball will know if she’s buying junk food.
Yeah, I wasn’t really counting on my seven-year-old having a credit card.
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There’s a chicken head on my desk…
… and it keeps staring at me.
My ex was giving me a hard time about keeping these dogs for the weekend, because he staunchly maintains that I do not like dogs. That is not, in fact, true. I love dogs. I am not super-fond of dogs I can’t seem to control, for all the obvious dog- and carpet-related reasons, as well as because I just like to control things. (Heh.)
We used to have a dog, and he was… well… he was a darling, really. Very sweet. But let’s just say that I am a paragon of mental stability next to that dog. That dog had separation anxiety and herding insticts that made him body-check small children into the wall and then stand on them and every time he went to doggie school he was PERFECT–there. He would then come home and be all “Yay! Back to the asylum! What can I destroy first??” I tolerated him for a long time, but once my ex moved out the dog left off all other bad behaviors in favor of a I AM NOW THE ALPHA AND I SHALL EAT YOU IF YOU TRY TO ENTER MY DOMAIN schtick, and, well, now he lives happily on a farm with another dog, and my UPS man no longer calls me nasty names under his breath.
Anyway, this afternoon Gangly Dog beheaded his rubber chicken. A moment of silence, please.
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I am the Alpha (but probably not the Omega)
Dogs: obeying, yet gaseous.
Floors: mostly dry.
Ant baits: not tasty doggie treats.
“Where’s your CHICKEN?!”: rapidly replacing “I bite you!” as favorite child-phrase to the dogs.
Barbecue: 1) at someone else’s house, 2) foodtastic, 3) pool, pinata and bouncy house included, 4) yes I DO like pina coladas.
Shoulders: burnt.
Kids: exhausted; see also, sleeping.
Saturday night: ponderous and melancholy.
I bite you!
So. Tired. I have this entire ground-breaking theory worked out about how much longer each day becomes relative to the number of times you come upon a small puddle on the floor and have to stop and test it to see if it’s drool or slopped water or dog pee and how it’s an exponential progression… but, um, the dogs ate it. Ha.
The dogs. THE DOGS. Oh, the excitement. Oh, the paper towels.
Today was interesting, because Chickadee went off to work with her Daddy (today was national Hurry Up And Bring Your Daughter To Work With You Because You Randomly Mentioned It Once Earlier This Summer And She Never Forgot And School Is About To Start Again Day!) and I was left with the task of soothing the savage, er, left-out Monkey, and attending to our canine visitors.
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