I wonder

Am I just imagining it, or are girls ALWAYS crying?

you know, I have a friend who works in the crime lab at the police station

Me: "Did you brush your teeth?"
Superman: "Uh-huh!"
Me: "Are you sure?"
Superman: "Yep!"
Me: "So if you didn't do a good job and you get some cavities, then Doug can give you a shot in your mouth and then drill a hole in your tooth. Maybe do you want to go try again, just to make sure?"
. . . pause . . .
Superman: "Yeah, I think so."

she's tearing holes in the curtains as we speak

A few weeks ago John and Captain America and The Hulk went ice fishing with some friends. Catpatin America caught a sunburn and this fish and ate it by himself until there were just too many of those tiny, hairlike bones to deal with. I don't blame him. Trout bones put me off endoskeletal fish for twenty years.

I was going to make a Devil Dog/Suzy Q for Captain America's tenth birthday, but I didn't line the pan, even though the recipe said to, and I ruined the cake. Shame on me. I am a wicked girl.

So we had trifle instead. It was way better than a cake, they assured me. And because there was no refined sugar (other than the candy bars on top), we were able to guiltlessly eat four servings apiece! Health food is the best! Shockingly, The Hulk (He Who Hates Disparate Textures) didn't like it--"it's great except for the pudding part," he says. But so you don't think he's the granola who's going to bury us all after we die of The Sugar, he's the one who snuck a package of donettes (the powdered sugar kind, gag) that Captain America had bought, and ate half of them by himself. Yes, by all means, let's eat the unpronounceable cancer dough, but not the homemade vanilla pudding, you ridiculous person.

Just now I heard Pinga hollering and sobbing in her room, and saying, "Mommy! Down! Mommy! Down!" So I went in there and she had climbed the shelves of her armoire and couldn't get down. I left her there so she could learn a lesson about natural consequences.

if'n you want to come

For anyone who is interested, we'll be celebrating Captain America's 10th birthday tomorrow with a colossal disaster of a failed ruined cake, so it should be a good time. We'll probably attempt to dip cake balls into frosting and put sprinkles on them, so it's sort of determine your own serving size. We do live to please others.

why shouldn't I want the best?

Yesterday I was yelling at Captain America about common denominators and realized that I hadn't seen or heard Pinga for a while, and this is why:
In other news, we are on day four of her bowel clean out, and her output is starting to smell like poop instead of pure evil, so that's nice.

my boy, I think someday . . . you'll find a way . . . to make your natural tendencies pay . . .

The conversation I just had:
Captain America: "Do you have pliers with any more grip?"
Me (because I wasn't born yesterday): "Why?"
Captain America: [opens his mouth and grabs his canine tooth with his needlenose pliers]
Me: "No. Put them away."
Captain America: "But they're mine! And how am I going to get my tooth out?"

replace "pee" with "vomit," and I feel you, buddy

After a night like last night, a little something like this makes me giggle. It's okay, not hilarious, but man, does it finish strong. I saw it over on Mormon Mommy Wars and had to poach.

At our house it's just the opposite. Our children learned long ago that until they buy a megaphone they have no prayer of waking me up, so they don't even bother coming to my side of the bed anymore. I'll wake up and be like, "Mmmm (yawning), that was a good sleep. How was your sleep?" And John will tell me about how Pinga was up five times in the night and Superman wet the bed and Captain America and The Hulk both got up at one o'clock to play with the Legos, and I will have no idea that any of it happened. Whoops.

paste can't quench my thirst for glue

Pinga doesn't like us to eat at other people's houses, I guess. Last Tuesday she barfed in the car on our way to the Beardens' for a Voice Male FHE (minus the lesson, because we have got a lesson, and there cannot be any more lesson), and then tonight after we got home from John's parents' house she barfed some sort of black, tarry substance all over John's shirt, and is still going strong three barfs later. She got some in her hair, and that is the saddest sight, a little girl with blackish green barf all matted in her golden curls. Sniff.

Barf is a weird word. We don't know for sure what it is that has caused her ailment, but whatever it is, it's probably garbage. Like, literal garbage. I need to start putting the can where she can't reach it, because she's always ferreting around in there for goodies. So weird. Maybe she has pica. I ate sand and glue when I was little, is she better than me?

I can't wait to try this out

Parenting tip: when her kids fight, my friend Christine makes them hold hands until they say "I love you." Who cares if it's effective or not? It's hilarious and probably less traumatic than what my grandpa did, which was make my uncles put on their boxing gloves and punch each other until they could get along.

duly warned

Upon seeing the stacks of boxes I had moved out of the fruit room:

Superman: "Ooh, I just love getting into things I shouldn't!"
Me: "Well, I love spanking disobedient children, so that should work out nicely."