I don't like to call it lying...

I call it 'peace at any price.'

K was having a complete meltdown one morning.

Like, Three Mile Island meltdown.

The reason?

"I didn't look to see how much the book that I want to buy at the book fair costs and now I don't know how much money to take with me!"

(Trust me, that was delivered all caps, but I just didn't have the heart to put you through reading it like that.)

So after a good twenty minutes of this:

"We'll send you with $10 and that would probably be enough..."
"BUT WHAT IF IT'S NOT???"
"Okay, $20 trust me K, will be more than enough."
"BUT WHAT IF THAT'S TOO MUCH??"
"Then they will give you change."
"CHANGE?!?"

DH disappeared for a moment and came back with the 'book fair' note in his hand.

"K, look what I found."
"Yeah, it's the note."
"No, but on the back of it, look."

K, reading: "K should bring $20 to the book fair tomorrow."

She immediately brightened, and said, "Mrs. G must've looked at the book to see how much it cost!"

Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

K: "WAIT A MINUTE. That's not her handwriting."

DH and I stopped breathing.

K: "Oh, no, it's just cursive."

I may give DH a lot of grief, but truly that was an inspired moment in parenting.

That was pretty bad, even for me

When will I learn to just give up on the idea of presenting a picture-perfect Sunday dinner to my family?

First, I decided to pull out the bread maker for the occasion. Was pretty excited about making bread, until I managed to dribble honey across the kitchen floor in the process. Nothing says "Norman Rockwell Moment" like Mommy spending the rest of the day shouting expletives every time she walks across the floor and finds another sticky spot.

Then I decided to make scalloped potatoes and ham.

Hours later, as the bread came out, I suddenly realized I had forgotten to put salt in the mixture.

For consistency's sake, I also forgot to put salt in the potatoes.

At this point I was thinking, "At least I can't really screw up the ham..." but it turns out I forgot to put any water in the pan, so that sucker was smoking by the time I pulled it out of the oven.

The kids kept saying, helpfully, "The bread is okay, you just need to put LOTS of butter on it."

I really hope one of them takes a shine to cooking--and soon--because I am seriously ready to retire my apron.

I'm partly to blame

At work the other day, a colleague asked what DH was doing with his day off.

I said, "Well, he's going to Costc..." and then I stopped short when I realized the gravity of what I was saying.

He was going to Costco without a chaperone.

Whenever he joins me on a Costco run, he usually says, 'Hey! We need jam!" and I have to explain that we don't actually need a restaurant-sized jar of jam.

The good news is, he didn't bring home a vat of jam or 6 pounds of nutmeg.

The bad news is, he's terrible at splurge spending.

His "oh what the heck, I'll get this too" items?

A bag of dried mangoes and a gigantic tin of licorice all sorts.

Guess what? None of the girls like licorice all sorts.

And I can only hope that dried mangoes don't have the same effect as dried apricots.

Life lessons from 7 year olds

The girls had a play date with a couple of their friends on Saturday.

The first part involved going to the Hyde Park Santa Claus parade.

When we arrived, we realized we hadn't brought chairs (newbie mistake) so some of the girls sat on the ground while they waited. One girl didn't want to sit down anywhere though...

"A dog might've peed there."

When the parade started, the second or third group was a bunch of people walking their dogs. As they passed us, a Jack Russell pulled its owner right past us over to the grass and promptly laid down a deuce EXACTLY where the kids had been sitting a few minutes earlier.

LESSON:  Sometimes it's good to be cautious.


Later, the excitement of the day started to take its toll, and S had a meltdown. And then another one...

I called her upstairs while I prepared the snack, and applied my patented method of parenting:

"Sweetie, CALM DOWN. What are you freaking out about? Well, that's hardly the end of the world, is it? You need to get a hold of yourself or you can't go back down there and play. NO, you need to CALM DOWN!"

At which point her friend came upstairs, walked over to S, wrapped her in a big hug, and said, "It's okay S. It's okay. I know." S immediately felt better and they went back to playing.

LESSON:  Try being kind instead of being a beyotch.

Huh. Imagine that.

That's what she said

The other night, we watched videos we took of the girls when they were toddlers.

Me: Can you believe how thin and happy mom and pop look in those videos?

DH: Yep, now we're just fat and miserable.

[laughter]

K: You can say THAT again!

Curse this child and her comic timing!

What's happening at our house tonight

DH is doing a show for Movember tomorrow, so he shaved his goatee down to a moustache and now he looks like Paul Sr. from American Chopper.

In related news, K was halfway through brushing her teeth when she realized that there was DH beard hair on her tooth brush.

Also, I was giving pedicures and got a toe nail in my eye.

That's how we roll on a Friday night.

Major milestone

There are some moments in life that need to be remembered and celebrated.

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