things I found in the dryer

Today I found . . .

paper, of course
a penny
a lego
dental floss (?)

maybe Abe had some popcorn

it's mostly because I'm a good mom, I guess

I swear I am not staging these photos.
I was cleaning up her earlier mess of puzzles and books in the parlor, and I forgot she knows how to open the fridge now.

like I said . . .

Just thought you'd like to know that Superman peed his pants last night, so as to cap the day off proper-like.

And Pinga did this:

it's like living with raccoons, only worse

This morning I woke Captain America and the Hulk for their chores--a process of tickling, poking, stage whispering their names and guilt-trippishly saying things like, "I need you to make the right choice and get up. Are you going to choose the right?"--and Superman decided that he would also get up. And I guess I should have told him that his morning chores do not include GOING OUTSIDE AND PEEING ALL OVER THE DRIVER'S SEAT OF THE CAR.

These people are going to be the death of me. Observe:

What is Pinga so happy about? Hint: it's not the fact that she looks like a dude.

Maybe it's the mess she made in the kitchen.

Or the one in the parlor.

The pillow mess--"hut," we're calling it--is pretty great, too.

Leftover mess from Friday's dinner.

Laundry washed but not folded, and linens stripped off the bed.

WHO LIVES LIKE THIS?

Pinga is a destroying angel. I just walk around cleaning her messes up all the time, except when I get too tired, and then it ends up looking like these pictures. She dirties faster than I can clean, like any proper toddler, and it gets way, way ahead of me, and then I don't even clean up my own messes. And then we have people disposing of waste in inappropriate places, and Pinga pulling my laptop off the ottoman and mashing the heck out of the power cord and its point of entry, causing me to perform elaborate yoga positions to get my computer to work . . . I hate my job some days. Right now Pinga is rolling around in the puzzles she's dumped all over the floor like a pig in slop.

At least I got the dishes done.

his default setting is happy

Superman: "That's [Pinga]'s tummy, and that's Mom's tummy, and (breaking into song) Daaaaad's tummyyyy . . . is aaaaat woooooooorrrrrrrk!"

Superman: "This liver is so good, I want to eat tons of bites of it."

halloweeeeeen!

It's a delicious braaaaaaiiiiiiinnnn!

The vampire wore tennis shoes.

A . . . monkey skeleton . . . I guess?

Indiana Jones swinging from the chandelier.

Reclining witch.

Lookin' sharp and lookin' for love.

Troy was Iron Man, with a glowing heart even.

My dad was Santa Claus.

Pinga was in her bee suit for about five seconds before she went to bed. John dressed up as trash.

Left to right: Claire, Troy, Justine, me, Aleece.
(ZZ Top, Iron Man, Egyptian Something-or-other, Witch, Violet Beauregarde)

We didn't get a picture of Dave as Willy Wonka or my mom as a scarecrow, but they looked good. We ate soup in pumpkin-shaped bread bowls, salad with all kinds of TERRIFYING accoutrements like witch noses and ogre warts, brain melon, brain cupcakes--lots of brain stuff. We had a pumpkin hunt with eggs decorated like pumpkins, ate donuts off of strings, pinned the nose on the jack-o-lantern (I won, WOO!) and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas. The kids did a little bit of trick-or-treating and got just enough candy to make them sick.