Two conversations from yesterday: 

Conversation #1: A Chip off the Old Block

T-Bot: “Mommy, I can’t find my Power Ranger”

Mommy: “Oh, I haven’t seen it, do you remember where you left it?” 

T-Bot: “I left it here Mommy! I left it here! You tidied it away! Where did you put it????”

Conversation #2: Where she manages to totally evade the Question

Daddy: ” Baby Sister, do you need to go potty?”

Baby Sister: ” Mmmm? Hey Daddy, your potty is here in the Mommy and Daddy bathroom! And there’s a bathroom in the kitchen too! I don’t wear diapers, the Wictor does because he’s a baby Daddy can I have a kiss? And a cuddle?”

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“After the Fairy Game we’ll play the Princess and the Pea?” 

“Um.. oh, OK”

“Good. You’ll be the pea and I’ll be the Princess”

Last weekend we made a trip to Petsmart to buy goldfish.

We didn’t come home with goldfish, we came home with Bettas. I am always wary of these big box stores, where you generally find uninspired and/or young staff who might direct you where to go for what you asked for, but heaven forbid you actually want any advice. 

This time was different. The first staff member we met was young, but she immediately told us what we didn’t want to hear: 

“If you get a goldfish you will need a 12 gallon tank. For one”.

“Then you’ll need to set it up 2 days in advance before you put the fish in it”. 

Apparently this is why goldfish are getting flushed down toilets across the country. Not welcome news for two children who have grown up reading books and watching TV programmes featuring goldfish in minute bowls, and who were looking forward to taking home their own in a little plastic bag. 

Thankfully this store clerk didn’t stop there. She pointed us towards the bettas. And the little plastic aquariums - they need one each but they don’t need to be big and they don’t need heating or aeration - then loaded us up with the best food and water conditioning drops that money can buy. She was good at her job. She had us buying and she had us leaving the store with what we wanted - a fish each for Baby Sister and the T-Bot, in individual plastic tubs. 

Meet Charlie: 

and Goldie: 

A week later, they are still a source of excitement and fascination to the whole family. Charlie is a boy (hence the beautiful plumage). He likes to puff himself up. He is not a big eater. He just nibbles his food and then hides behind his plastic plant. Goldie is a girl. She likes to gulp! She isn’t as impressive but she can sure swim fast. 

Best of all, you can feed them, a little bit, one to three times a day (no fighting with the kids about overfeeding), and clean their tank out once a week. And that is it. It doesn’t seem complicated and they hopefully won’t have an ultra-short lifespan, like other pets we have had.

I don’t know why I had never heard of these little fish, but I sure am enjoying taking care of them.  

Walking through the mall from the shoe store:

“Mommy, my shoes hurt”.

And as we changed her back into her scuffed old princess sneakers,

“Mommy, I am going to call these new shoes my Hurt-Hurt Shoes”.

At three o’clock The Daddy called.

“How are you?” I asked.

“Fine”, he replied. Then a pause.

“Go on then”, I said cheerily, “ask me how I am!”

“Um…” he said, “I can hear the screaming.”

When I woke up Friday morning it was going to be my cruisy day. It was going to be my lazy day. It was going to be my day, after weeks of bouncing from one thing to another like a demented Tigger. The Friday page of my little red agenda was blissfully, beautifully bare.

Then Baby Sister threw up all over the breakfast table.

So I reluctantly allowed her to stay home from pre-school, because she had, after all, thrown up, although the thought remained in the back of my mind - no in the front of my mind, there in big red letters behind my eyeballs - that it was all just a cunning ruse to avoid school.

And at first she proved me right. She was happy during the kindergarten run, cheery when we got home and she was allowed to watch PBS Kids, and she did an admirable impression of the Cheshire Cat when it got to 10 am and I decided that if my day was going to be monopolized then it may as well be monopolized at the mall. And not just at the local exburban mall but at the fancy pants mall in “town” (as we like to call those suburbs slightly closer in).

I needed to buy her some new shoes anyway so my excuse for the day was “shoes”.

On the way through the mall, I grabbed a few cheap t-shirts and hurriedly swiped my card (BTW I always lose the receipts, so if they don’t fit I will be wearing them anyway). I had managed to shop for myself! Things were looking up!

But something started to go slightly wrong in the shoe store, right around the second pair of shoes. Baby Sister suddenly, unfathomably, began to do a very good impression of an Alzheimers patient. Every time she was asked to walk around and feel if they were comfortable she would stare into space, make a completely unrelated comment, or wander vacantly out of the store. I didn’t help matters at all by insisting she try on umpteen pairs, because they had a “get the second pair half price” sale on and I was determined to save $20 even if it meant that do accomplish this goal I would have to hand over $20 more than I had planned. After all, this was the good mall, and the last time I found the time to set foot in the place was November of 2007. No joke. I was a woman on a mission.

So finally we walked out of there with two pairs of new shoes.

… Unfortunately, there is more.

The Wictor was hungry, and we were right in front of McDonalds. Which is where I got my just desserts. For, as the food arrived, Baby Sister threw up all over the table and herself.

The really really strange thing is, this task accomplished, she perked up, and insisted on eating her Happy Meal.  I had peeled off her sodden t-shirt and jeans and she walked out of McDonalds proudly attired in one of my new purchases, which I explained to her was “just like a dress”.

Expect it wasn’t. And as we walked the length of the mall back to the car, heads held high, every single person we passed stared.

“Daddy uses his liddle eye pooter* to work the big eye pooters.  Daddy needs his liddle eye pooter to tell the big eye pooters what to do. That’s what he does in town. ”

*She can say computer, she just chooses not to. If nothing else, she knows how to work the cute factor.