Apology

Dear Mom -

You remember that time you left me at the library . . . oh, wait, you don't remember. Well I'll start again. You remember that time you dropped me off at the library, I was 9ish, to research a project for school and you said you'd pick me up in an hour and then it got all dark and stormy and I was a bit nervous because you hadn't come back to get me yet and then when I started to tear up a bit the librarian asked if I needed to use the phone and when I called home and asked where you were coming to pick me up, you asked why you would pick me up when I was only across the street and I said because I was at the library and you asked how I got there and I said you dropped me off and you said no you hadn't, but came to get me anyway . . . yeah, remember how I give you a hard time about that even to this day?

Well, I am sorry for not letting it go. Let's just say that on Saturday, the house was really quiet and I looked all over the house for two kids and was just starting to panic when I remembered that the two children in question had gone over to the neighbors to play . . . four hours previously. Yeah, so sorry.

Your only daughter.

Subversive

The youngest of my five children, who we will call P for the purposes of this blog, has a few obsessive tendencies. She must put her clothes on in a specific order - panties (and don't call them underwear, you will insult her), pants, shirt, socks - or a melt down will ensue. I'm really not sure if I should just go with it or try to change it, but really she's 3 and the youngest of 5, so yeah I just go with it.

Her chocolate milk must also be made in a certain way. First you pour in the clean milk (that's just milk, but she must distinguish between clean milk and milk that we may have spiked with any medicine she may need at the moment but refuses to take) and then add the powder and stir with a spoon. If she sees you make it another way, she will refuse to drink it. Again, not sure if it's good for her future mental health to let this continue, but yeah, 3, 5, pick your battles.

Except . . . .

When she's not in the kitchen to see how I make her chocolate milk . . . .

I put the powder in first and then the milk . . . . and I laugh a slightly evil laugh.

Kitchen Experiments (or I Am the Coolest Mom Ever)

Last week J started pulling things from the baking cabinet - flour, sugar, Crisco, salt, baking soda, oil etc.) and declared that he was going to make something. When I inquired as to what he was making he explained that he did not know, but would just put things and see what it made. (This is where I had a mini panic attack). I managed to convince him that we should make brownies from a mix and he could add chocolate chips.

But yesterday he began the same process again and would not be shaken on his quest see what he could make. I gave him a measuring cup and let him go, with only a few hints (the smaller the container, the smaller amount he'd want to use - good advice for the way things are contained in my kitchen - so the 1/4 cup of baking soda he was holding over the bowl probably wasn't a good idea.) When his recipe was complete, he declared them to be brownies and we baked them as such. J's brownies were deemed a success by C and are nearly gone.

Today when he arrived home, J declared he was making cookies and once again began pulling things from the cabinets. Again I allowed it and the cookies are cooling, waiting to be tasted, but if the dough is any hint, they aren't too bad. I'd have used more sugar and more cocoa, less olive oil, but at least he had the sense to not include the rock salt in today's recipe.

Maybe I can get him to whip up dinner tonight, too.

The Loosing of Teeth

Loose teeth freak me out.

When they were my loose teeth I wasn't bothered. But when C started wiggling his first loose tooth, I got all grossed out. I survived the initial spate of teeth falling out (4 years ago) and have peace in the wiggly tooth arena.

Until . . .

M came home from school on Monday thrilled that she finally had a loose tooth. And now, Friday, she has THREE of them.

And E could get a wiggly tooth any day now.

The mere thought of all those possible loose teeth sends shivers through my body.

What strange thing grosses you out?