Because I am not at all a new feminist and because I believe a woman’s place is in the home wrestling with dust bunnies*, this is what my daughter will be getting for her birthday this year:

That way she can get in lots of practice and won’t even notice when we substitute the real thing.

Click through the picture and read the blurb on this one! It made me laugh. A vacuum cleaner for every class! Classy!

*BTW, we don’t have dust bunnies in our house. We have dust dragons.

Despite my very best efforts, The Wictor is the only one of my kids who is still truly bilingual. But he is at the age where he is muddling up the languages - mixing up the vocabulary and trying out grammatical rules on one language which belong with the other. This is a perfectly normal stage and they soon work things out by themselves. In the meantime, it can make for some cute little conversations.

Yesterday as we were leaving the supermarket together, it started to rain.

“Garde Maman!” he said, “C’est pleut!”

“Il pleut”, I corrected absently.

“Oui Maman! C’est pleut -ing!”

Apologies to non French speakers out there, usually I translate things my kids say, but this one doesn’t really work in translation.

Baby Sister still understands French but prefers to converse in English now. Unless she wants something or just wants to please. This morning she came to give me a “present” of a bow from one of her Christmas parcels.

“Maman! ” she said proudly, “Un cadeau pour toi! Une Beau! A bow!”

I hope everybody had a great Christmas, Hannukah, Kwanzaa or Just Another Winter Week!

Hope everybody had a great weekend. Things are extra busy around here, so very quickly, a few photos from the last few days:

The T-Bot. Just got his first loose tooth. Very exciting. It can be hard to live with all teeth firmly cemented in place when you have spent the last few years avidly reading this.

There is one burning question to be answered: “How will the tooth fairy find us?”

Gulp, I wasn’t expecting that one. I answered “The same way as Santa Claus” but I should have stopped to think that one out, because I don’t know how Santa finds us either.

Baby Sister is now eagerly anticipating her first Tooth Fairy visit also. The concept of years is still alien to her, so for her sake I hope she is an early shedder. It is difficult being a middle child, everyone else always gets all the attention.

In the meantime, for two glorious minutes on Saturday, she was the Star of the Show (one of 10 stars actually, but details, details…). She loves being on stage, in fact she loves it so much that she always forgets all her dance moves. But that’s OK. She compensates by ambling around the stage in a very endearing fashion.

And here is my Number Three. Also growing up. It is strange, but also a relief, to no longer have a baby in the house. This weekend he took a break from his usual Ewok impressions to become Obi Wan Kenobi.

Obviously he first had to eat his body weight in M&Ms (I don’t know where he finds them, but they sure do keep him quiet while Mommy is trying to work), have a screaming fit, and be rescued by The Daddy.

The Daddy, by the way, is awesome. He is magic, and I wish he could be around to look after my children all the time. He is like a male Mary Poppins, except he doesn’t clean, fly or sing. Also, he doesn’t wear a dress.

Disclaimer: I wrote this quite a few days ago and meant to post it, but then I got an uneasy feeling and asked The Daddy to proof read it first. He promptly declared that it made no sense whatsoever and what was I thinking. Once I had finished yelling at him for being so rude, not reading properly and all manner of other failings, I rewrote it, but I have to admit that it is still downright confusing.

Never mind. The days are passing and the Time Fairy still has not made an appearance to grant me the Gift of More Time, which means that another blog post will not be forthcoming in the near future. So I figured I would just post this anyway. Someone, somewhere might make sense of it. The key is to remember that Baby Sister speaks Native Texan, while her poor mother sounds more like Peter Jackson on helium ***.

You probably had to be there. Sigh. But look up! I did include a pretty picture!

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Baby Sister: “Mommy, the library at school is where they get the books for all the centers in the classroom”

The Mommy: “(OMG, what are they teaching her at school?) The sinners? It’s where they get the books for the sinners?”

Baby Sister: “No Mommy, they get the books from the library and put them in the centers in each classroom!”

The Mommy: ” The? Oh! They get the library books and put them in the centers!”

Baby Sister: “No! The centers! The centers!”

The Mommy: “You mean the senners? Mommy says centers, and you says senners. Right?”

Baby Sister: “Mommy! You’re saying it all wrong! I don’t mean that! You have to listen!”

The Mommy: “Sinners”

Baby Sister: “No!”

The Mommy: “Senners”

Baby Sister: “No!”

The Mommy: “Sennnnerrrrs”

Baby Sister: “No! No! No!”

The Mommy: “Saynnnnerrrrrs? Seeernnerrrs? ”

Baby Sister: “Yes, Mommy! That’s right! They put them in the centers!”

The Mommy: “That’s what I said. They take the books and put them in the centers.

Baby Sister: ” No Mommy! Centers! Santa is the man what comes at Christmas!”

(***I said “sounds like” ! I did not say “looks like” !)

Today is the first day of school after the summer vacation and sometime during the night T-Bot’s fish Charlie died. This morning he was lying curled up on the floor of the tank, so I didn’t believe it at first because I thought dead fish were supposed to float. But, after an exploratory poke into the tank to check he wasn’t just asleep, I had to keep poking to make it look like he was moving. Because he wasn’t, and today as you know was the First Day of School. I didn’t want anything to ruin this.

Then Baby Sister wanted to feed him.

“That’s OK! (OMG OMG OMG OMG)” I said brightly, “I already fed him this morning. Anyway, he’s still asleep”.

Yes, I do lie to my kids, sometimes. Especially when it is for their own good. And sometimes even when it is for mine. (”Mommy and Daddy Chocolate”, for instance. Is deathly to children). 

This morning they were all cooperation and excitement, and I was a bunch of nerves, although I think I hid it very well. We were ten minutes early for the bus, because apparently the school bus is a magical thing. Not quite like the Magic School Bus but almost. The T-Bot has been begging to ride the yellow bus since he started kindergarten. Now he is going into 1st Grade I finally let him, despite the dire warnings from certain American friends about some sort of  Lord of the Flies type alternative reality which is supposed to exist behind those blacked-out windows.  I saw immediately what she meant when two smirking 2nd graders wandered up and proceeded to stare at my son as if he was something gross that had just fallen off the bottom of their shoe. But then, the other boy at the stop was a very very nice 5th grader, and the bus driver lady was lovely, like somebody’s Mom.  So I decided that the odds of surviving this bus trip were probably hugely in his favor. 

That, by the way, is my New School Year’s Resolution. To look on the bright side and not stress about anything until it happens. Last year I let the whole school thing drive me to distraction. And yet the T-Bot? Was eager to go to school this morning, so it can’t be all bad. 

Baby Sister went back to pre-school later, into the Pre-K class, and I had promised her that she would not be in with the Four-Year-Old going on Fourteen-Year-Old who terrorized her last year. Note to Self, stop being so trusting and quit making promises based on information gleaned from other people. Still, she seemed happy to be back, for now at least. 

So, children dispatched, I set off for my appointment with the new dermatologist. And I swear, as if touching a dead fish, sending my four year old into the devil’s lair, and putting my six year old on a school bus were not stresses enough for one day, the dermatologists clinic had vanished into thin air! 

Another Note to Self: Stop being so trusting and quit giving any credence to information doled out by Mr Google Maps.  I had even looked at the street view, and the fact that it showed a service station possibly should have been a clue, but I figured the clinic was somehow behind it.  It wasn’t. It was about 2 miles up the road but it took me a while to ascertain this, given that the telephone number I had written in my agenda was for a random lawyer’s office. 

But they were very understanding about me being so late, and let me in to see the dermatologist anyway. And he was very nice about me wasting his time, because the two moles which were bleeding when I made the appointment a month ago are not bleeding anymore. He declared me a very disappointing carrier of “common or garden moles” (His pun. Intentional? Who knows?) and sent me on my way.  

And now? I do sort of miss my children. It is almost school run time. And bus pickup time because (jumping in air pumping fist a la Tom Cruise, who by the way, looks very dorky doing it but I swear when I do it, it is graceful) someone else is going to bring my eldest home for me! I will not have to spend 30 minutes in the car line today! 

And that is reason enough to celebrate. 

I am a little frustrated right now. This morning we went to Baby Sister’s appointment at a new pediatric dentist. I wanted to try a new one as an experiment.  I just wanted to see if a pediatric dentist even exists who doesn’t run a tight factory production line operation, with children lined up in chairs and the dentist uttering two words to each, poking around briefly in their mouth and then moving onto the next. Without even a goodbye. 

I wanted to see if this imaginary dentist would have a hygienist who didn’t sound like they were reading their lines from a script. Because my son is six years old and last time even he had enough of the faltering rendition of “This is Squirty Squirter he’s going to squirt water in your mouth see Squirty Squirter’s squirting, it’s just water see. Now let’s meet Bobby Brush he tastes good and he makes a whizzing sound listen to the whizzing sound… ” after the first three minutes and was looking at me like “What has this woman been smoking???” 

And I’m not even going to mention the dental assistant who handed the T-Bot his “sleepy juice” before dental work with the words “Ewww. It tastes yucky!”. 

Anyway. I just thought I would check all this stuff out. So I phoned and made an appointment with Our-New-Dentist and gave them my insurance details and wished I didn’t feel the need to try new medical professionals each time in search of the perfect one. Because what with all the phoning and exchange of details and form filling that goes on, I am losing hours of my life here. Hours which could be spent either productively or in watching Season 3 of Weeds. Take your pick, it’s all good.

But I made the effort and we arrived on time and Baby Sister was even excited about Her Turn at Our-New-Dentists! But we never got past the waiting room. Because when we arrived they informed me that they don’t accept our insurance after all. The lady was very nice about it and gave Baby Sister another free toothbrush to add to her free toothbrush collection, but still … she didn’t offer to pay my gas money or refund my time. Or put my children back in their PJs and arrange them in front of PBS Kids. And then I realised I had a bigger problem. 

The Not-Our-New-Dentist’s waiting room was amazing. It was enormous. It had trains of every description, and building blocks, and Finding Nemo running on the TV (like actually running, without us having to ask!). While I was discussing our ultimate rejection with the receptionist (who, by the way, was not sitting behind glass!), my three children had settled in and were playing contentedly. You could tell by their faces that I was the Best Mommy Ever for bringing them there. 

So I let them play for another few minutes but we were the only people waiting and I started to feel a little uncomfortable freeloading off Not-Our-New-Dentist, especially as we already had our free toothbrush… so we left. 

And as we left, the Wictor started wailing, “Noooooo! Nooooo! Wanna More Dennis! More Dennis!” 

My sentiments exactly. 

Candy House by Baby Sister. 

(About 2 seconds later the roof collapsed under the weight of all that sweet goodness. And then we ate it.) 

… who is the fairest of them all? 

It’s a magic mirror, only visible to true princesses.

Do you see it? 

On Friday night all 3 kids stayed up until 10pm watching the light show from our yard. Yes, really. There were so many fireworks being sent up just in our neighborhood that we didn’t even have to leave the property. It was very exciting. Oh, the jumping! The screaming! The glee!

We are still paying for it, though. Saturday morning T-Bot and Baby Sister slept in until 7.15, a measly 30 minutes over our previous record. So we had time to kill before it was time to drive Aunty B to the airport, where she was catching a plane to Mexico. I hoped they would sleep in the car during the hour-long ride but only The Wictor did, and he had been awake since 6.30. 

And then he was rudely awakened by Baby Sister’s screeches when we arrived at Terminal E and Aunty B took her suitcase out of the trunk. Baby Sister did not want to lose her friend Auntie B, and rightly so. Because she was tired, her pain was multiplied. She screamed all the way home.

When she had been through a few thousand repetitions of “I want Aunty B! I miss Aunty B!” she lost McDonalds Playplace privileges, so she switched to “I don’t want to drive thru! I wanna go to the Playplace!” And then she alternated. When her conditions did not improve she brought out the big guns. “I don’t wanna live with you any more! “ 

In the meantime we missed our freeway intersection. Then the next available route. And a third, which meant we had to do a U-turn. By the time we got off the freeway The Daddy was so frazzled he declared he couldn’t even cope with the drive thru. So we switched places and I drove, but I was so stunned I couldn’t remember the way home. 

By the time we found our house, after one and one half hours of wailing , the likes of which I have never heard and hope never to hear again, Baby Sister was running out of steam. 

“Mommy, I am sorry,” she whimpered, staring up at me with big damp eyes, “it’s so hard to be good and not scream, when you miss Aunty B and want to go to the Playplace. “ 

What could I say? Just like that, all was forgiven. 

And last night was an early bedtime, for all. 

Mommy, I love you!

I love you too. I’m so glad you are my daughter.

Because you chose me?

Um… yes?

And I chose you.

Um…

I was at another neighbors place and you came and got me from there!

(this is starting to sound like an adoption story)

You remember how The Wictor was in my tummy, you were in my tummy just like that.

I was in your tummy?

Yeah.

Yeah… I was in your tummy… (Thinks. Wails) …and you spit me out!

No, I …

Because you didn’t like me! You spit me out!