In two weeks he will turn three. He seems to be, out of all of my children (and I count The Daddy and the cat here too), the most normal.  He does normal pre-schooler things. He reacts as an almost-three-year-old should to new challenges, routines, stimulus. He sits when he is asked to sit. He fingerpaints when he is asked to fingerpaint. He takes pride in going potty. Sometimes he refuses to do these things and throws himself on the floor wailing and thrashing in a Terrible Threes tantrum. But only at home. Nobody looks at The Wictor and passes judgement. He is a normal little boy, doing normal little boy things.

And yet, he is scarily switched on. “Mommy,” he told me one day, in that matter of fact way of his, “ice is like water”. He notices supermarket signs on the horizon, tiny caterpillars on leaves. He is observant. More than other children his age? I don’t know.  But he certainly can articulate what he sees.

Last week, he passed another Normal Little Boy milestone. I was out with Baby Sister running some errands, when there was a knock on the front door. The Daddy answered it and found the neighbor standing there. She and the Daddy had a very short conversation and then she pointed to our youngest son. The Daddy stepped out into the front yard and squinted at The Wictor. He looked something like this:

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I didn’t forget to insert a photo. That is, in fact, how The Wictor looked to The Daddy from his vantage point on the front doorstep.

So The Daddy took himself off down the street to where The Wictor stood in someone’s front yard. When he reached him, he asked him sternly what he was doing and told him he wasn’t supposed to be out on the road.

“But, Daddy”, said The Wictor calmly, ” I am looking for Mommy”.

Which was The Daddy’s cue to launch into a lecture on safety. In our neighborhood there are no sidewalks.

(We are too tough for sidewalks, out here in the Houston suburbs, where The Car is King The Truck is King).

“But Daddy”, said The Wictor patiently, “I walked on the lawns”.

Later it all came out, the details of our youngest’s daring escape.

“The two boys playing Kick the Ball!”

“The Big Boy said “Go back! Go back inside your house!” ”

Thank goodness for the neighbors.

We get a lot of Lost Dog signs up in our neighborhood. People are very careless with their canine friends and the children get very excited when they see another fluffy face posted with a phone number and sometimes even a reward. They run through the possibilities quickly, concisely:  finding the dog, calling the owner, getting the reward, spending the reward, getting the dog home in time for his much needed medication…

Later that night The Daddy solemnly told the assembled family that if it wasn’t for the neighbor we would have had to put a sign up for The Wictor. Lost Wictor. The T-Bot and Baby Sister were excited. They very expertly planned losing The Wictor again, making the signs, putting his little snub nosed face on the paper. Sticking it around the environs. Someone would find the Wictor and bring him home and all would be OK with the world. We would eat ice cream.

Myself? I am putting my faith in a better lock for the back gate.

If I had a dollar for every time I have been asked “Why Texas?” I would be on a white sand beach in the Carribean being waited on by bronzed hunky waiters instead of …

…ok…

… you’re right. But I would have a few extra dollars jingling and jangling around in my pocket. Which is why I have been thinking of blogging our reasons for a while.

Today was the perfect day to start. Because today was the day the UK’s Daily Telegraph came up with this:

I shouldn’t really need to say more but just in case some of you are a little slow (or, much more likely, have been drinking), I should point out that today in my neighborhood the temperature reached 95 degrees (35 for you celcius folk) and school isn’t even out yet for summer.

Hold that next thought. We have air conditioning.  And when the sun streams in the windows? It’s nice.

So, somebody in this house graduated last night.

I’ll give you a clue : it wasn’t me.

I have never lived in a country which takes the transition to Big School so seriously. Pre-K Graduation is a truly American rite of passage. I have European friends who have refused to take part in the past, on the grounds that it is ridiculous,  to which I say:

Piffle!

Lighten Up!

LOOK HOW CUTE SHE LOOKS IN HER PINK GOWN AND CAP!!!

The Ceremony was mercifully short (considering that it consisted mostly of out-of-tune singing in english and mangled spanish) and as a family we managed to get through it without major incident, which was amazing, when you consider this:

Her teachers even gave her a “Class Ring”.

So Baby Sister had her day and was happy as a clam and you know what? She also made up for all those years I would fume at the back of the class after yet again getting the award for ” Little Miss Brainy” or “Teachers Helper” or “Book Worm”.

She won “Little Miss Sunshine”.

She has achieved all my dreams for her. I can die happy 

So this week my fairly expensive iron decided that since 18 months had passed since its purchase it was probably about time for it to leave for the great Ironing Board in the sky. Never mind that it had spent most of that time lounging around in the laundry cupboard, sipping Pina Coladas or laughing at my expense or doing whatever mostly-unemployed appliances do.

I bought a fairly cheap iron to take its place. I’m not going to explain why. It’s simple economics.

There is always a lot of discussion around the blogosphere about whether people prefer to be buried or cremated. Well, we decided that sucker should be rudely dissected and its innards used to make an insubstantial spray gun. And then its remains should be tossed unceremoniously into a landfill.

That will teach it.

This Mothers Day I wished for flowers, plants for the garden, a gourmet meal, and lots of sparkly jewels.

And I got…

Flowers from The Wictor:

Actually I got nothing. He made himself this card for Mother’s Day and a lovely flower brooch too. He was so proud of his artwork he kept repeating “The Wictor colored it in!”. And then he refused to hand them over. So, when he wasn’t looking, I stole it.

Here’ s the inside:

Obviously, he knows me well.

Moving on.

Plants from Baby Sister:

Baby Sister made some Mother’s Day gifts at school too. It all came home on Friday with strict instructions not to open anything until Sunday. But I could see the little pea plant sticking out of the paper bag and although I totally respect my childrens’ wishes I did feel obliged to open it and give it just a few drops of water. If nobody saw me doing it, it didn’t happen, right?

I also got a baby food jar of colored sand and a hand print from Baby Sister, and she accompanied her father to the supermarket to purchase

A Gourmet Meal from The Daddy:

Some of my favorite things in the world: Licorice Allsorts, Birds custard powder and a bottle of wine.

Baby Sister chose the wine, for obvious reasons.

And last but not least:

A Very Rare Diamond from the T-Bot:

The T-Bot felt left out so he “bought” something from Baby Sister’s “Store”. She assured me it was “velly velly expensive” but she loves the T-Bot a lot so she gave it to him for free.

Awwww. Somebody loves me.

Who would have guessed that we don’t really celebrate Mother’s Day at our house? Bet none of you lot were so spoiled!

There is so much I could be blogging about, you know, IRL stuff, but then I end up writing something like this:

I am now officially an old old woman.

The Daddy downloaded Purple Rain and we have been watching it in installments and do you know what? I have been feeling a little nostalgic for simpler times. Don’t worry, I am not going to say simpler, more innocent times.

It was actually the first time I have watched Purple Rain and it is all a bit sad and pathetic isn’t it? At least with hindsight. All that C-grade “acting” and flouncing around and Prince doing his Bollywood starlet impersonations with big mascara’d doe eyes. I know we all thought it was cool at the time.

(Cough, except for me because I was 12 and wouldn’t have been allowed to see it anyway. I did secretly want to be Madonna, though. Which was a totally healthy reaction for any teenage girl back then).

There is no getting past one thing though. Whether or not through an accident of sloppy directing, it does do a good job of depicting the drama and pathos that is teenage courting. Ha! I used “courting” on purpose. Because I am old. Also I used “teenage” even though anyone at 19 should rightfully be considered an adult. That’s a sign of age, too.

What I mean is, Purple Rain is just one long music video with quick cuts to posy teenage angst and long silences and issues which never get resolved. It’s all very confusing, just like being young is very confusing. It’s like one long alcoholic haze. Things happen for seemingly no reason. You know, he takes her on the back of his bike to the middle of nowhere, she gets down under a bridge by a train track (why? why?), they fight and she runs away. Then he gets back on his bike and rides home and apparently doesn’t see her for a day or so.

Wait. Pause. Rewind (which you do by noisily pressing down that big mechanical button. And it doesn’t quite click in, so you hit it again, this time with more force. Some of the young’uns will have no idea what this old lady is going on about).

Let’s go over that again. Never mind that he just left her there. This is Prince, after all.

This is what gives me pause: he didn’t reach for his cellphone to order her back (does anybody else remember that awful feeling of dread when you would fight with someone in a public place and they would flounce off, leaving you to calm down but with absolutely no way of contacting them to find out where they were?). And where are her frantic texts, telling him what he can do with his damn hoop earring which was probably only gold plate anyway and she knows because she saw one on Ebay for $2.99? (U R NUTHIN 2 ME is about the best I can do, given that I came of age pre the emergence of rampant text msging). There are no scenes of her updating her profiles on Facebook and MySpace to “single” and then writing a host of status updates trashing him. No shots of her returning to her hotel room to cry over You Tube videos of his performances on a loop. She also isn’t DM’ing her BFF back in Norleans to ask her what she should do now. Actually,  and we know this because she says so in the film, Appollonia doesn’t even have a phone. So I’m guessing she couldn’t update her blog either.

And where is the scene where he finds her website (complete of course with poses in lingerie) and then googles her and finds the nekkid photos and throws the laptop against the wall?

You know, that is how I would have written the movie.

Except it was 1984 and I didn’t have a crystal ball. And maybe, just maybe, those times weren’t so simple after all.

I’m sure most Dads would do anything for their daughter, but how many of them would do this?

One Friday a few weeks back, inspired by that TV commercial where the businessman goes away, taking his daughter’s stuffed animal with him to photograph in different places  (I think - I can’t even remember the damn thing to be honest - and it is 12.30am - but I am assured this is the gist of it), Baby Sister begged her Daddy to take Butterfly on a photoshoot in Houston.

This is Butterfly.

To be more precise, this is Butterfly sitting on the table of a restaurant during The Daddy’s lunch hour.

I cropped The Daddy’s Boss out of the picture.

These are the extremes to which The Daddy will go for his daughter.

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Here is The Daddy in the restaurant holding Butterfly.

Yes, he does look a little embarrassed.

Even I would have looked a little embarrassed. And I look good in pink.

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Cut to Butterfly on the bridge The Daddy walks over to get from his carpark to work.

He carried Butterfly for 10 minutes along some very public sidewalks. Now that is true dedication for you. I can’t remember what that businessman in the commercial had, but I am pretty damn sure it was not a pink poodle.

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And now, some local interest shots for the folks back home. Butterfly on the bridge. See the lamp in the background?

Here’s that same lamp, on Tuesday (when school was cancelled and half the city stayed home, but The Daddy took his little car and aquaglided in to work):

Yeah, Houston floods. Just a little.